Pensées Sauvages

The title (a reference to Claude Lévi-Strauss' 1962 work, The Savage Mind) can either be translated as "savage thoughts" or "wild pansies". He intended the ambiguity, and so do I.

 A question like a razor

Cuts inside my mouth.

I dare not speak for

Fear of what might come out.

 

Grant me instead

Paper, ink, and rhyme

To let the poesy of my words

Unfold in its own time.

 

I wish I had more grace

To tame these wild thoughts--

Crafting clever schemes is not

So easy as hatching plots.

 

I could quote a thousand lines

Sung to Queens and Saints of old,

But using someone else’s poems

Is never quite so bold.

 

And those poets have more skill

Than me--that is true--

But the best of them

Don’t know you like I do.

 

In your presence I am a child,

Starved and selfish for love,

Clueless, sharing the first lines

That I can think of.

 

Or maybe I am the crone,

Posed like a still life?

Someone who cannot recall 

What these feelings should feel like.

 

You keep me guessing,

Dizzy, confused, and lost,

All the while you remain

The enigmatic Prince of Frost.

 

I cannot say how you draw me,

Nor why the pansies grow wild.

Like them I am gathered before you,

Ever your Springchild.