My Ada, Lola, Lo-lee-tah, sweet southern belle curve; The Venus, Aphrodite, Sekhmet, Bast, any goddess who alas, has the nerve to be both my godsend (good friend) and beguiling ruination; My throbbing adolescent fascination and Oh, Boy! Well, hello Mrs. Robinson!; My whetting, whistling-siren and bewitching Pandora, and sticky-candied Colette; My literary longings for the likes of the fawning, winsome, quixotic Dulcinea, fiery Beatrice and fated Juliette; The Mae, Marlene and Marilyn who make an obsequiously cooing satyr out of the hardened metropolitan cynic in me; The Mata Hari, Pin-up and Salomé who fill my day with careening, wanton reminisces of our last fling; The Cleopatra, and Circe who turn this sappy poet-pauper ring into the happy song of the King of verse; or, at worst, La Belle Dame Sans Merci who mercilessly tempts me as if she herself is Eve.
the art of love
l.m