MARCH POETS

Pierrot

By

Ian Stewart Black

“The clown Pierrot sings of Columbine,

A creature fair as highest angels be.

To think that such a heart could e’er be mine;

The clown beset by cupid’s bow is me.

My lady is above all things revered,

And cut from thread which dreams are woven of,

But still she looked upon Pierrot, mere,

And promised him her sacramental love.

I wish upon you all delight as this –

Her dear Pierrot has been blessed to reap.

But now, enough rejoicing in my bliss;

I still my tongue a while, the lady speaks.”

“Bellow forth your love, Pierrot,

Tell of my unblemished graces;

Flourishing in apt affection –

To your words that reach all places.

Truly, gods have smiled upon you,

Furnishing your heart with passion;

Plain as you might be in essence,

Unassuming and oft outdone.

Venerate me as you promised,

Lest I stray to a suitor new.

Love me, and be lost, Pierrot;

As you sing for me, I love you.”

“Happily, Columbine, poetry pleases you –

Even to fall to the arms of a commoner;

But beauty, vanity, prominent majesty,

All of it calls to you, all of it beckons you.

Pierrot dissipates, living in monochrome,

Wasting his sentience crafting his arias.

Wouldn’t you rather be living in eminence,

Beautiful, luminous, glistening beside me?

Follow me, Columbine, elegant, ever-free;

Blossoming, glorious, shine as a firefly,

Enliven this colourless jester no longer.

Fall to me: Harlequin, worshipping all of me.”

“Colourless, perhaps, but loyal,

Pale, but never straying from me;

Songs of love, he has to offer,

Still you speak of absent beauty?

Yet you see my heart’s ambition –

And you promise luminescence

Where this simple fool has sonnets,

Ballads, choruses: naught but words.

Hold me not too dear, Pierrot,

For all my love was vanity.

I exchange your songs for sequins,

Into the arms of Harlequin.”

“How cruelly does this story culminate

That I end without a blithe word spoken;

Sweet Columbine absconds to live her fate,

And the poor Pierrot, he is broken.

Now my laughter, smeared in sombre lipstick

Is twisted to a still, despondent frown;

Lost amid the comic and the tragic,

And who has pity for a grieving clown?

Upon his knees, the poor Pierrot weeps –

For Columbine, whose love he bears within.

Forsake him here to tend his sorrows, deep,

As inky tears malign his silver skin.”