Letter From a Mute Lover

I sold my tongue to meet the fee

that by prompt post will ‘twix thy fingers be

such adoring letter pronouncing love undimmed

by bloody linguistic organ trimmed

that loss of speech loses handicap

and plugs what was a bleeding tap

injunctions from this beating mind

that let alone itself malign

with faulty blather that now I skirt

coordinating hands knit thoughts once inert

forcing steady pace to let you know

I’ll all maladroit speech forego

eager as cage-birds offered sky

with crimson claws their prison to decry

to be a mute at last to cease

all noble duels for liberty’s increase

let august valour do what dare it then

I’ve valour more plenty in my pen

and bulking liberty if phonetics decay

to ruminate aloft verbal fay

prizing you with writing hands atop

yet for your mere sight these I’d gladly lop

for a hundred words fealty such unworthy branches to muster

I’m ‘hundred times the worse to want your luster

smallest realities do roaring ambition eclipse

to kiss with eyes, to touch with lips

a thousand-fold repayment to a body hacked

love and self-violence deny abstract

better than spells and balladry’s dance

give not vain suppose full sway to trance

freedom of sky is worth airborne reveling

birds yet with flight are nests assembling

passion for prose let not expend

amour with subject matter to contend

as artists study sitters more than the canvas

portraits invent extrinsic status

come then to me and with your presence dub

these words living, and I’ll caress with a stub

your neck, your self, to make absurd

and transcend all virtue of adorning word