Voyeurism
Or
David's repentance prayer
My Lord, I saw her bathing from my throne…
My throat abruptly stopped the Psalm compressed with a gasp.
By the purple and deep blue night the pale walls of the baths stroke me cut but of her, all the colours she sprung painted my eyes to see.
My Lord, her curves all convexed and concave in alternative succession.
Her skin glassened by the pouring water, varnished…
Her movements all circular…
The gilded lantern's light smoothing her matter to the finest gold.
Father, how could I not look at her, when all the prayers were revealed in her…
My Lyre, oh Lord, was now spidered by my fingers in a rapid low tune of chords never tried, all cadent and upwardly scaled. And her song hummed to mine, it was as sweet as all of mine unto you.
Her hair was flung in strings of ebony as she voiced the chorus and all my notes were in her throat.
How to tell that this permanent contraction of my body and silence of my mind - I was all exterior, only with the senses of mine eyes and my touch,
How to tell this was not divine, but devilish? Or was not Belzebub once too a morning star, all God's silver upon him? Or was that star not shining a contour on her… And was it not then that God and Devil were lovers?
What then of me, Lord… A Man gazing at Bathsheba…
The sand of all the deserts you gave to me stretched in a small scale before my feet.
My hands let the lyre break to the floor and all the distance before our voices was shortened by touch.
We sang velvet and silk, cashmere and incense until the chorus stroke one final turn and we were both You, transfixed in oblivious gaze.
But we cannot be You…
for you are without predicate.
And so we fell apart by your command and my fingers tune this missing blasphemous song of anguish for the sin we tasted, missed and are clean of.
Bathsheba sings no more. And I curse the oil on my head for I must repent and go ever Your way, with praised "hallelujahs" of sorrow and shame, instead of whispering sighs by her bosom.
Father, I surrender myself to the leadership of the Kingdom but my eyes shall be ever turned to the Morning star that shall curse your kingdom with Wisdom and Love.
Amen.
Inspired by Leonard Cohen's "hallelujah".