Eurydice (Reading)

By John H.B. Martin

Featured in New Lyre Summer 2023

Eurydice 

That was the Sistine Chapel, wedged between 
our complex life and all that slept beneath  
your kisses, and my curses, as we danced  
love's simple dance beneath the midday moon.  

Which might as well have been the midnight sun  
the way you looked at me… (And I looked back!)  

You could have walked along that look - (to share  
what dream?) - as if it were a bridge across  
some gentle stream - or else lust's raging torrents.  

I loved that look you gave me! It went such  
a long way back it reached to where I stretched 
my feet, almost, yet did not dare to fare  
the way I stared at you, just then, upon  
that Bridge of Sighs, close to the Source of Being.  

John H.B. Martin is a poet who lives in London, England. He is a graduate of London University and Australia National University and has been writing for many decades. He has written four novels and is working on a fifth. His magnum opus is a six-volume epic poem. Most of his work is yet to be publishe…