SILENTIUM ALTUM

no more miracles
on luck & illusion we shall rely
get us by
get us through the gates


Throat mellowed by wine & age
Long drags from cigarettes
Smoke-filled sighs while
Listening to the stars grind across the sky

Orion is mired in the city lights



As night falls

each moment
  is haunted
by the same stillness
  of expression
  on a man's face
  as dark hair and
  glimmering eyes descend
    upon him

and his mute
& breathless lips
await her kiss


I am filled with the treachery
  of a crew whose vessel staggers
in becalmed waters

between open sea & cloudless sky
the horizon can become
a razor's edge
between Heaven and Hell

I have dull lead in my gut
Obese thoughts crawl up from the
                                bottom of the sea



    despair the three-legged dog
    despair the untended garden
hope singing grinning the man more machine
    despair the blood-stained bride
hope the creased photograph pocketed in the foxhole
    despair atheist fingers laced in repentant prayer
hope the bold moment beneath the blade
    despair the stalled clock
         a long walk
            through brief moments


this ragged shirt of joy

hangs around my neck
like the tattered banner
they will carry

those victors of the Apocalypse



Death comes each night
w/gray powdered skin
and spidery arms

old toothless maid
come to claim a virgin
for her bed


We commit against these moments greatest treachery
As we crawl for days through loveless picture galleries
In bondage we romance our fondest memories
With clumsy stroke attempt a pleasing flattery
And grieving we behold our painted travesty



The irresistible charm
    of a forgery
        Day by day
            Tracing the lines
        of a stranger's signature
A stranger's life



Seek out the dead

Tombstones teach
etch their lessons
on a black slate sky


glistening lying here asleep in my cocoon
listening I receive in dreams
visitors from other rooms
creeping in & placing burnt offerings
at my feet
I shall seek no name or reason
until it is complete



The mind celebrates the sensual void
wanders from the carnival
into dark forgotten hills
              where aborigines still
              run & dance & hunt
              & haunt the memories of the waking



Stained glass windows
         melting in centuries
             before my eyes
     pictures liquefy
to imitate life
but I can look upon them without
     lust or joy or sorrow


He recognizes all the signs
that they had come this way
perhaps
even stopped for water or
     sleep  :  blissful ignorance of the crimes
                 of the next day

The straggler from a broken camp
      wanders the unknown
believing any path
      walked long enough
eventually leads home

 
BACK