Sonnet to an Unknown Love.

Behind each sinking sun there stands a dawn,
Beneath each covered grave there is new life;
And once the gold has glinted, and is gone,
The Darkness cloaks so sweet, so cool, so rife
With bright and burst and love and calm and shine,
Immortal Bright, that bright which you become,
And, drowned in light, I fade in one brief fine,
A comet, blasted down by burning sun.
I dread your forest hair, your darkened skin,
I dread your eyes like kings upon their thrones,

Your graceful speech, your silver laugh, your kin;

I do not wish this pull towards all that home.
This life was once but grass and fireflies,
But now-unlove? To stop would be to die.

Mars

"More, and more, and MORE!"
He cried, as on the battle raged throughout the night:
"Mars, my battle-cry is hoarse and I am dying;
Still, for you I fight!
Surrender?-I spit upon those dogs,
Thrice damned! I will not give up to HIM!
So onward, weary soldiers, storm these rusty gates!
Even now I miss the taste of bllod upo my lips...
Do not give up the fight,
Till death and all hell doth take us all!"

And up the weary soldiers stood,
One final gasp of breath before
That one, most final plunge...
A gasp so dry, devoid of air, that noone dared but heed the master's call.
"This is the final resting place?
My bones shall rot in gravel, soot, and blood?
No hope is left in sight-all, as one, shall die
And not one star for us shall sigh!"

A bugle sounded deep within the castle walls,
Behind the smoke and swelter,
Behind the gore and dead;
And up those rusty gates, and out that rider tall;
Behind, as if the voice of God above
Had blasted out the greatness of his all,
And out that rider tall.

No dream was this, dear children, hearken here-
As I sit before you, mark my words-
I, alone, the Hercules of that great day
Was left to show the scars from that damned sword;
I, alone, of all my myriad
Did live to see the bloody, burning morn;
And now I sit, a vassal to the throne;
A bloody puppet, a cursed and hated stone.

Friendship and a Comet

Warmth, and numbing stillness in the air
Abounded that day,
When through the trees sprang dried sun-drops.
And you and I went out upon that day,
And split the hazy heat that bounded off the streets
To talk of this and that,
And while away the time, alone, together.

As day passed on, with firm omnipotence,
Through hard-fought afternoon
And up-stairs walks
To sun-pressed windows, and chilly chairs,
And empty coffee-pots, and chatting stares,
My eyes grew grim and tired,
And all that is was all that used to be,
And will then be again –
The unnerving stare of baking sun,
The coolness of the chairs.

And dinner-time came and went in step
To some slow waltz, it seemed
At least now looking back at that daily habit
As we sipped our time-trained speech
With open ears.
Then talks about some present past,
As if some toy was needed to be fixed
With glue, and re-embellished just one more time
Before set back upon the shelf,
For at least a little more time.

And then, in broke-down pews,
Where truth is transferred from view to view,
We were again at odds,
With organ music playing, nodding heads swaying
To the choir chant.
Then out, out into that dusty dark
Where raining thoughts beat heavy on my brain
And conversation topics seemed as if
They would never come.
Truth be told, a sad slow walk was eagerly apparent.
And warm-aired night was blasting to the bone,
As out I walked again with you, alone,
And spent some time in the miasmal atmosphere.

Finally, some drawn-out talk
Began to eat the soul in me
As four o’ clock was drifting in
And ticking tocks resounded in my bones.
How funny – the air inside was shocking when
We left the room.
And lying out, with that warm-aired sucking starlight
Blanketing my bones –
No flit of june-bug uglies in the space between those eyes and mine –
A sudden flash! And all eyes drew at once to that descending death,
That glorious death.
Some words were interchanged, but lonely thoughts are not to say,
But to huddle close together with,
And feed with silent hours’ flames.

Well, back we quickly walked, and parted ways,
Ways that cross like latitudes and longitudes
To meet and part again;
But still, I know I see before my eyes
The monologue of stars,
The endlessness of space and the quickly dying night.

The End

There was an avenue there,
Where we walked upon the starry stairs,
And in it walked a mass.
You pointed out the people,
All the places they had been,
As out through all the billboards,
The coffee-steam, the smoke,
The stream of shriveled voices
Trampled on to ends.
“All things must end,” you said…
I think that truer words are seldom said.
For I can see, deep within the wanderings of my mind,
Those faces I once knew, and never seen again.

And should I dread
Some long, dragged-out departing?
Or should I feel love?
I dream of long roads,
Of empty stores with “closed;”
I dream the past like present,
In my leaves I feel the rain –
So smooth, so subtle,
So soon replaced by summer pains.

Life is full of spider-pains,
Planned and purposed out to break.

And in the sea, I sat among the coral,
I watched it grow, I watched the flitting fish;
I saw a hook, and gladly gaped my mouth –
I left that sunless dream-world,
And found myself alone.
What tide will be the highest,
Will wipe my castle off the ocean floor?
I pray for cloaking memory,
I pray for sunny roads.

Mother

A rush, a push, a sudden scream
I entered here, red-cheeked, big-boned,
A harsh joy inside your waiting arms.
And on we passed, through certain unknown towns,
Where words so strange are spoken,
Stangers’ tongues are lead,
And hand in hand we walked cross red world roads,
And played in swings.
These were bird-chirp years, when suckling
And tiny hands was all there ever was;
Love, unrusted by life’s deep.

Thoughts Upon a Funeral

Pt. I
Red eyes, and all we’re kept here for
Is to loose our leaves into the winter winds,
Where tired pacers crunch their ways around
Our many-circled bark,
And see the places lovers left their marks upon
Our stout and aged trunks.

Oh! once this bark was tender, our branches much less brittle,
No rings abounded round our inner core;
And once, this aged tree was but a kernel in the ground,
Unknown, unseen, dependent on the spring rains and summer sun,
Mothballed, and waiting to begin
That short bursting of a stem.

And still the mourners cry, and still the “Ave’s” sound,
The air lies still upon the chapel-floor,
“The greatest loss” and “How will we go on?”,
Silently resounds from pew to pew, in every thought
The casket lies heavy as he is wheeled up the aisle
And the crying of a child
Breaks the tear-stained silence.
And the older men try to hide their sogginess.

Women cry, and children cry, but men?
Men are the rock, the solid ground
Which catches up the weaker sex when all the world
Becomes a floating mist.
What greater test than this, to see the greatness of a man,
When at his final curtain call, even grown men cry?
I hope and pray that in my final rest
I, too, will have loved enough to earn such love.

One lone man stands upon the pier,
Amidst the screams of seagulls, sea foam flying,
The pungent scent of rotting fish, the salty air,
The foghorn sound.
And through this mist I hear
The song of peace – and that of joy,
For though I mourn your loss,
I know that you behold the Truth,
A truth I seek to know, a face that here is bathed in shadow-light,
As if a fire burnt somewhere close,
But seldom cast its light upon Its brow.

Pt. II
A cold day it was, with wetting fog
And misted window-panes
When through bronzed doors your wooden bed
Was gently pulled by shaky hands.
And up we stood, as up the aisle
You went one final time.
Oh! Sadder sight has no man seen
Than that fogged procession up the floor
Your own hands carved and laid in place
To adore Him you see now face to face.

But what is it you now see?
And with what burning eyes and warmth of tongue
Did you reply to that dread call?
Was it a whispering certitude which rent you out,
Wrestled you from midst this earthly sheet
Which serves to separate the living from the dead?
And was it kind?

Or did some bird of prey drop, descend
Upon your fearing eyes
And catch you in its claws, wriggling from fear?
Did you dread the flowing distance
Ever-growing, never-ebbing, crashing closer, closer up your shore?
I do not dream to know.
No; yet somehow deep within my inner parts
I see that no such fear would enter you.

Pt. III
Now, some slow time has passed,
So many different seconds dripped dully into days
And weeks and months, and centuries from now
No memory of tired eyes and limping step
Will spark suddenly in the corner of an eye;
The winter rain and shifting earth
Will close above your stone.
We are so short upon this earth,
Then fizzle out.

Our lives are coffins wheeled up the aisle,
Stared at, pondered, shut, returned to dust.

I pray to be, like you,
A comet in the sky;
A brilliant flash, illuminating all around
With but short life;
Better that, than staring through the clouds
At havoc. Let me change the ways of men
For but an instant;
May I explode and, in glory, die.

Teiresias

I have crawled in depths of blackest night,
Climbed peaks impassible
In Highest Ecstasy;
I have passed below the gaping caverns,
And lost the compass while travelling
Through vacuous space.

On worlds where wills abounded,
Where thoughts were real, and eyes blinked in starry moonlight,
I searched for something hidden
In the cloak of my desire.
Now I seek with ears the truths of passers-by,
What "makes-them-tick," makes them personify
Being. I seek God in the sound of new shoes,
The beating of an urchin's gait.

Oh endless night! My eyes are dead to me...
I wish to see her face once more,
See her sunken eyes, her wrinkled face,
Close her in my arms, and die.

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

I am old and tired and too soon dead,
Life! I do not know If I should thank you.
I think not. I have been your puppet,
Your Lap-dog;
In return for my childish curiosity,
I have been repaid with loss and loneliness.

And still the stuttering day-dream walk,
The static sorrow
Of humanity paces past the widows of my ear-sight.
I see no beauty in the politician,
Money-proud, and vain;
No, nor the soldier drenched in
Death's Glory, Slaughter's pride;
I cannot love the shrew,
Nor honor calloused hands and callous tongues.
I see nothing here, upon my night-time world,
But misery and hate.

I see no beauty in humanity,
but emptiness in dusty me!

I lie here, how long, in blackest night?
Millenia compounded on Millenia?
Perhaps I shall no longer be encased in mummified quarter-life.
I do not mind to die!
It seems to me a blessing...but quiet! here he comes!
Like a mob, a herd of emptiness,
He shouts silently some unknown word, a language without sense!
Shall I call back across that river deep,
In like tongue?
Oh suddenly, that stabbing light! Oh agony!
What do you wish, O speechless spectre?
I cannot answer desire unspoken! Release your stranglehold,
Let me free, O Material Ghost!

"Remember man, that thou art dust!

A Self-Portrait

Now, let me paint a portrait here, of me,
Of all my wandering wailings in the wind;
A painting, from the port where I begin
To where, in fine, my soul shall be released.
But colors—what to use? Use Brown? Use Gray?
I think to use them all would be a waste…
And then, my painted hair, my painted eyes –
In truth, what more are they then false disguise?
No soul could catch a glimpse of what is “I,”
That Paste of life that is that ALL I am;
No eyes could slowly scratch, with clawing sighs
Their ways into my underground – I stand,
In lonely comfort, terrified, and proud,
For I am One, a Lone Almighty Shroud.