Word Thingys: Salome Strangelove
She fills the mezzanine and dusty shadows
With lullabies of sweet insanity
Rhinestone rhymes, Sphinx-laced riddles,
Court intrigues and vague profanities
She’s forgotten more than they can know
Her Winters discontented by their vanities
But she has not forgotten
No, she has never left
Say her passion’s misbegotten;
Think her alchemy is theft
Yet there are words which no one owns
Words immortal as the Spring
And that is why no one can still her
That is why she sings:
“Come unto these yellow sands and then take hands.
Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
The prince of darkness is a gentle man
And he hath robbed the rage of Caliban.
There are daggers in his smiles.
Things beyond all use and I do fear them.
But I defy the stars their havoc crying
For, I am dying, Egypt, dying…”
Imposters swarm her spotlight stages
Foreigners in cloistered walls
Her velvet sorrows pay their wages
They cleave her soul for curtain calls
Oh, how’s she’s suffered fools and sages
And one by one outplayed them all.
But she has not forgotten
No, she has never left
Say her passion’s misbegotten;
Think her alchemy is theft
Yet there are words which no one owns
Words immortal as the Spring
And that is why no one can still her
That is why she sings:
“Come unto these yellow sands and then take hands.
Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
The prince of darkness is a gentle man
And he hath robbed the rage of Caliban.
There are daggers in his smiles.
Things beyond all use and I do fear them.
But I defy the stars their havoc crying
For, I am dying, Egypt, dying…”
She holds magic no one owns
Remains immortal as the Spring
And even though time cannot still her
Sometimes, alone, she sings:
“Oh, I am patient as the tides
And I will never give up trying
But I have missed you all these long, long years,
And I am dying, Egypt, dying.”