You claim to know through hearsay
I can write and say a line.
And that may just be something,
But not poetry like thine.

Your lips were first, I noticed.
Their rosey, sanguine shine,
Their gentle part was stiff'ning,
and raises more than I.

If I could be those saintly words,
Sweet nothings from your lips,
I could be, would be art itself
Conceived in breathless kiss.

Upon a wizened ancient lyre                                                                                 Harps music of irrepressible allure                                                                            Suffice to set the soul on fire                                                                                  With supreme reflection pure                                                                                Troubador of the city floor                                                                                        Irresistible tune to cherish and adore                                                                          Fluent in melodies of magor and minor                                                                  No magic no fires of heaven could outshine her                                                        Prophets clamor to hear her and wine her                                                                   She like thee a mystery                                                                                                      Riffs and riddles on the gems of history                                                                      myth and magic her mind's geography                                                                       love's philosophy her theosophy                                                                                 her psalms beget by ear wise trophy                                                                     which ne'er decay or wilt or atrophy                                                                        beget thy sweet and sonorous bars                                                                             WHICH DREAMS OF HEAVEN AND SINGS TO THE STARS                                         in harmony with the cosmic serenade                                                                          in which the soul's truest abade                                                                                    balladeer a renegade who told the truth because it paid                                               to not put one's soul up for trade                                                                                      a passion in love's furnace made                                                                                oh to listen in the dappled shade                                                                                   my mind waltzes with the lilt                                                                                         you have replete lilt to the hilt                                                                                    song stirs flowers sunk in silt                                                                                       they sway and sigh and soar and wilt                                                                          sensuous and attuned to the song                                                                                  that doth ring around the earth up and along                                                              raising the sound of the world in the throng                                                                  for half the world away is tianneman square or hong kong

He sings love songs
     without the love
     for the song.

He amuses the crowd,
     the critical throng.

What they don't know
     is that after the show,
     he goes home
     with a wrinkled brow.