The Sleeping Venus (Delvaux)

#50

Sleeping Venus does not dream of men.
She is made of love she cannot share,
Love being just another form of flesh
Only memory can touch again and again.
Like the sickle moon, vicious and fair,
She is unimaginably distant light and ash.
Her five handmaidens gyrate and moan,
Beseech the night for clothes of their own.
The well-dressed Madame, Venus' tool,
Mistakes a skeleton for a love-struck fool.
Bleak and meager dreams for a goddess,
Yet how peacefully she seems to sleep.
Though her realm is all stone and distress,
We will now invade her sacred keep.

The City Worries (Delvaux)

#24

I am beyond caring while others still worry.
Is my hatred less than those whose fear
Is still fresh, untainted by time's fury?
That bastard destroys our city one tear,
One rape, one sigh, one gasp at a time.
How to act? Pursue a lover, or demur?
Plead forbearance? Preach the sublime
And inevitable end? Or pray for a cure.
The latest come with their breasts over bows,
Some devil's notion of the perfect dress.
(I'd be happy with a simple suit of clothes.)
I see their awful confusion and distress,
But the Black Bowlers are now in control.
Even that beauty there will lose her soul.