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A double bed, a single sleeper
a mind at unrest
Verwirrung, Liebchen
rolling terms
his, hers
Fireflies in the eyes
metaphors of every sort
conceits of yore
convoluted words
his, hers
Lullabies of love
songs of themselves
whispered, sung
in synesthetic spurts
forget-me-not blue is the night
...prelude...
Old light, from distant stars,
streams past the grime
coating the flawed surface
of broken stained glass,
windows on a corrupted
eternity,
a spotlight on
the Inquisition
i. Prophecy & Maelstrom
On awakening, I see,
then I do not see,
eyes without lids blink
in occular caverns
carved in unfeeling flesh
--- such stigmata is vanity ---
while sacriligious images
foreshadow
the arrival of a dying day,
lumination unborn,
and a prickling of my psyche
predicting flames
from a dark furnace
where oracles burn
ii. Intuition
Memories walk beside me,
whispering prayers
to forgotten deities,
and I stare
past the face of the clock,
arrythmic cosmic metronome,
and I plug my ears with fingers
stained with the ink
from forbidden books,
to unhear the heartbeat
of entropy fading...
I am not brave.
iii. Mesmer & Schism
the opiate of the perverse,
these fevered dreams,
a contamination
flowing through fragile veins
of a population
of blind sheep
flocking under the glare
from a black-hole sun,
I plead for a return
to the unity of the whole --
a siren's call, hypnotic...
iv. Delusion
progeny of lepers
dictate our hunger,
a perversity of appetite,
draining light
from the broken jewels
in a sundered crown,
and laughter, forced
through trembling lips
stitched shut,
pictures
at an infernal exhibition,
DeBussy filtered
through a peyote veil
v. Rapture & Chaos
I cannot rest, this heady wine
is an addiction I cherish,
a conspiracy of scorn I drink
in greedy, hungry draughts,
and once inside,
feeling the nectar take root
like a cancer,
beginning its infestation
changing me, claiming me...
... redemptive narcosis ...
nowhere is the poisoned tongue
more inventive or seductive
than here, behind
the curtain of nightmare,
where, on awakening,
I see, but I do not see,
where, claiming consciousness,
but rejecting Divinity,
The Sacred shall weep
and the Fallen will sing
**********************************
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "Agony 2" by Sletse (Luc Sesselle), dreamstime_2108197.jpg
I need a reason to live.
You would think
Les Enfants du paradis,
Mahler’s Fifth Symphony,
Blonde on Blonde, Hamlet,
Sunlight on water
The way Monet painted it
At Giverny,
Dinner, conversation,
A bottle of wine
With a friend...
You would think
Any one of these things
Would be enough
To take the next breath,
To take your breath away
Altogether . . .
Sometimes, I confess,
That next breath,
I do not know why I take it
At all. I just do not know.
I do know it is not enough
That breath be no more than instinct
Or to just wait around
For the end of things
To see how it will all turn out,
To see it through
An idle curiosity.
The darkness behind things
Is some days much
For the light to bear,
Even that light,
Water lilies
In your eyes,
Whose quiet beauty refuses
To abandon you or me or us.
the saxman inhales
a passing breeze
b l o w s Sweet Georgia Brown
down River Street
breath and hands tapped
into a vein of rhythm
fingertips
on the keys of his horn
the pulse of the city
Magnapoets Premiere Issue - January 2008
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