Temptation

My temptation is to tell you

that

I do not love you, Archangel,

to tell you

that

I am not

still

a volcano

hurling molten ash

into the orange skies.

My temptation is to claim,

that

I am

now

dormant, quiet,

obedient

....

to the dulcet lime-infused

harmonies

of steady etiquette

and muffins by the fire,

with stoked up in-laws,

strapped down desires,

and an appreciation

of rolling greens,

clipped hedges,

village fetes

and the principles of social preservation,

the harnessing of human potential

to the good

of an imagined, scripted bourgeois

.....

security.

Archangel,

my temptation is to tell you that

the delicate rose of tranquillity

and a future clothed in comfort

and polite considerations

.....

moves me,

is the glacial silvered zenith

to which I do aspire.

....

My temptation is to tell you

that

I am not

a spitting, blazing, cracked

Vesuvius,

that

I am not

raining down my fury,

my fire,

my pure black and crimson

fulminating

cataclysmic

desire

an entire civilization,

the incandescent fiery and wholly destructive

ever-unfolding flower

that

I am.

My temptation is to tell you this, Archangel,

solely

so that, over porcelain cups of Lapsang tea

and finger foods with tiny useless napkins

and silver

edge-less knives,

I can sit with you

folded in your crimson wings

and

......

erupt.

‘Temptation’ is the poem used by Mark Hamilton Gruchy in his film which won the Near Nazareth Festival Competition in 2016. : https://vimeo.com/144136085