The Garden of Lonely Pleasure, Silver Salver, Golden Chalice & Hope Is an Encrusted Anchor

By Stewart Burke

Featured in New Lyre Summer 2023. Paid subscribers can download the full issue at the bottom of this page.

The Garden of Lonely Pleasure

Within this garden of lonely pleasure
the living waters whisper your name.
Iris and lilac—now wild, but once tame—
herald Spring’s newfound indolent leisure.

Indolence is a form of insolence,
as the scented, barbed rose knows so well.
If it could talk what stories would it tell?
How can such velvet clefts claim innocence?

Outside this garden of lonely pleasure
the teal have left Lake Dal for wing-ways North.
Warblers build their nests, cuckoos plight their troth.
Golden oriole bides investiture.

Within, cherry and apple perfumes waft.
The wallcreeper’s silence belies the bright
crimson of its wings when not folded tight.
The skin of the peach reminds me how soft. . . .

First in this garden of lonely pleasure
stood the mulberry grove where now tits sing.
Golden rain and torch trees and fountains bring
relief from the bright sun’s grandest gestures.

Now, laughingthrush mocks the concept of walls,
reminding of man’s conceit which once built
lofty halls and towers tall and rooms gilt.
Now, the wind soughs and the sparrowhawk calls.

Last in this garden of lonely pleasure
am I who savor the lush profusion
amidst illusive dreams. But illusion
has no place amongst such natural treasures.

The eight stone terraces all now are bare,
and empty, too, the white pavilion
where once I bravely placed a vermillion
pomegranate blossom in your dark hair.

Silver Salver, Golden Chalice
after Banquet Still Life by Abraham van Beyeren 

Abraham van Beyeren (1667) – “Vanitas” Banquet Still Life 

Things first gazed upon most define our sight. 
Rapt eyes are drawn to the sensuous cleft 
In a musk melon of one slice bereft, 
betraying an almost carnal delight. 

Suchlike, too, the furry, rose-rumped peaches, 
Their sunlight concealing bloodstone within, 
Honeyed secretions dripping down the chin 
As if from a lover’s innermost reaches. 

Snug in inset pearl and silver salvers, 
To the blithe oysters it’s of small matter 
That the ice is cool and lighting flatters, 
For they live in the moment, these halvers. 

Outermost rims of auricular plates 
Sport coronets of grape leaves, both living 
And smithed; figs, red and green grapes abounding 
Atop Delft bowls, and wood and wicker crates. 

Fruits of hot Midsummer, fruits of cold sea, 
All exist for mind and eyes’ consumption, 
But not the mouth: taste is our presumption,
And leaves us starving for more, constantly. 

Roemers’ stems, blackberries around bestrewed, 
Their bowls filled with a vinous fruit’s essence, 
Reflective of golden window panes’ presence 
As if across the room a stranger viewed. 

In vain reproof of gravity’s stern laws, 
A lemon’s rind dangles from the precipice, 
Unfurled athwart a lobster’s red carapace 
and Scylla and Charybdis of its claws. 

Is it day or is it night? Both? Neither? 
On the timepiece, six-forty’s absolute, 
Endless consecration of a minute 
Captured in imagination’s ether. 

Centering this universe, a chalice 
Nautilus-shaped, as golden as its mean, 
All mathematical mysteries redeemed 
Within the dark chambers of its palace. 

Next which a lewd, wreathed figure – Silenus? -- 
Floats bestride a covered goblet of glass, 
Bearing tray aloft, if not borne on ass 
By which he fain followed Dionysus. 

Just a sot when sober, yet while drunk, wise, 
He thought it best never to be born, 
Deeming life and fecundity forlorn 
(Despite burghers need to aggrandize). 

Resting on a plate precariously 
Is a slender paring knife, smooth-handled, 
Like an infant upon a knee dandled 
Both lovingly and nefariously. 

Atop the banquet board, a Persian rug 
Draped carelessly but with the utmost care; 
A satin cloth also frames the plates there: 
All might fall with just one gentle tug. 

Beyond the table, a tenter-hooked rail 
From which a shroud that dims all light depends, 
As if covering casket from end-to-end, 
Or a widow’s face beneath a veil. 

Initials carved thereon, a post rises 
Behind, by artist marked lest he’s forgot 
By those who come later and know him not 
Ere he be judged in Heaven’s assizes. 

As a gesture of plenty, goblets will 
Be insolently cast into the fire 
as the shadows in the great hall expire 
and satiety and ennui work their will. 

Things last gazed upon least refine our sight. 
It’s the vermin unseen that outlive us all, 
Climbing on our corpses, chewing through the walls 
As we whither, unblinking at the light. 

Hope Is an Encrusted Anchor (After the Hope Dionysus) 

Dionysus towers beside the diminutive kore in himation, 
Summer’s pure light, arm outleant as if expecting an Amazon 
Or an adoring ingenue who’ll grow into the role. 
She is Hope – Spes as the Romans styled her – one of the virtues. 
Severe of mien, yet standing demurely upon a rough slab, 
She holds up a closed lotus to remind us of foul beginnings.