Ebb And Flow And Fierce Regret Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

PICASSO AND SYLVETTE

Nymphet how much I wanted you:
To kiss the salt-line of your hair
To comb my fingers through
Your curls and linger there.

I lied that creativity is happiness.
As I painted, I longed to touch
Your skin, setting down the canvas -
How much... so much … ne touche!

And my art is not stronger than life
How could it not betray your beauty?
It being laid by brush and painting knife
And you lustrous, innocent and day-dreamy?

Chaste sea-nymph, your other worldliness
Protects you from the satyr and the centaur -
Your land-grief and sea-loss-weariness
Salving wrack and wave on yearning's shore.

No arousal it seems passed between us
My heartless beauty torn from the sea.
As you left to tippy-toe the beach on broken glass
Between the tides, what did you think of me?

Ma jolie sirène au poney queue -
My pretty pony-tail mermaid Sylvette
Tell me, were my portraits true to you -
In ebb and flow and fierce regret?