I’m reading Elise Stewarts’s books Paradise and Opium Valentines.

These are works of ancient formulae. The Ficinian theurgy — the theory of love as a form of natural magic, enough to produce intersubjective erotic phantasms loaded with the emotion of passion. And thus her reader becomes her prey.

Elise Stewart is a specialist in the poetry of transitive affection.  Her books are published by Masque Publishing.

“Opium Valentines”

Night-time is the dancer,
my opium valentines, around
who’s shrouded mist I wander,
tempted by the gentle orb of
candle-light upon my dark-lit walls.

Yes —
the twilight hours, come not
soon enough —
with the sip of deep red vine,
to forbade this thirsting mouth.
To permit these eyes to audience
each mythical scene — unveiled.

Captivated, I must engage this
prophecy, drink the maddened
eye of pleasure, until the head,
heavy with delirium, sinks into
the sedative of sleep.

Until enslaved — I succumb to the
yearning depths of night,
and into the lure of dreams
— must fall.


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