My love is like a red, red rose;
not just any red, red, rose,
else why take the trouble to write about it?
My love is like a rose so red that it cannot
(and should not) be described in any accurate way;
like a Black Hole, we speak of it by saying what it can done,
what can be done in its presence.
My love is kike a rose, darker than sin
(surely you know that sin has a colour, and it is a most unplesant,
albeit bold, shade of ochre) which swallows up colors and,
not content with sucking in pigment like light,
or the special effects of a golden-age cinematographer,
my love is like a rose
whose very brilliance of blood-wine splashes
crushes all other colors;
destroys our ability to see them,
shatters their spirits
and their left knees,
until there is no colour left
(and precious little sound;
sonics are not fools,
and they figure, if it can happen to pigment,
it can happen to bits of auditory displacement travelling through air.
My love is like the reddest rose:
fear her.
flee her.
encounter her not,
or be destroyed,
stripped bare of anything
but shadows,
left a husk.
She would walk in beauty,
but beauty sometimes makes other colors look good,
and that’s just too damn dangerous,
so she walks in a cold fury,
unaccompanied,
alone,
utterly destructive,
flawless,
to dangerous for the human gaze.
That’s love, fellows;
o, that’s love.
