Eyes are jewels, cold and blind,
Blue as oceans and westward minds.
Lips are full and blossoms round,
Damasked rubies reveal whitened mouths.
Locks are flaxen silk and made of gold,
Always straight when young and old.
But the nose…is a nose.
To put it best, she is not a rose,
Yet there are many things she would give,
For that flitting fragrance – desperate lift.
Lips, eyes, hair, part in two,
As they leave with the morning dew.
But in Nose’s kingdom, upon a barren plain,
Of straw and earth and reddened clay,
No bridge, no shape, blind and lame,
Inherited foulness, a fief of shame,
In her moat with dark-headed fish,
The physician sat with Nose’s wish:
“Eyes are cobalt, lapis and kind
Unlike my bridge, which is blind,
I cannot debate like luscious Lips,
For they can steer broken ships,
Nor I, black-headed, can be like Hair,
Her locks are open, gilded and fair.”
My misshapen form remains aquiline,
A yuhina proud but savage, not divine,
No, hem me with buttons made of pearls,
The shape of discs on the shirts of earls,
Cast my anchors, throw out my hooks,
For eyes can see and spurn my looks.”
So lengthen my tip like the pointed stars,
And make me pale as the grandest czars,
Flay my nostrils, reduce them to slits,
Allow me to swoon in those romantic fits,
Bind my bosom, let my figure starve,
I shall pay in gold for your blade to carve.”
In glory she rose, in sunlight she paled,
Yet midnight she gazed to no avail,
She wished to sink into white, frothing waves,
And at last die in an urn instead of a grave,
So the poor Nose slashed open her spleen,
To chop herself up in her guillotine,
But lips, eyes, lies, even hair, part in two,
Contacts fell with not a tear of blue,
Masks removed for lips torn and chewed,
Perms fade, without a dying attitude.
They wept for the death of the lonely nose,
In the hopes to hear her desperate poem.
“Eyes are sweet, even narrow and blind,
Toasted almonds, warm as an open mind.
Lips are broad and wine not bound,
For love flows freely in accented sounds.
And hair, be it coiled, curled, or flyaway,
Is as rich as coal and as strong as hay.”
And although the nose is not a rose,
Her death is mournful, a tragic close,
For her death on that star-streaked night,
Was struck by that subtle, creeping blight,
That swooning miasma, at the end of the day,
Is the color of moonlight’s crepuscular rays.