Another First Midnights

This is the other world
Where the death-cold eyes
of fishes meet
The three great forked tongues
of the serpent touches the dark
hood of the sky
The black fire burns with the
blue silence of Ovid

But not the cold pallour
nor the nameless dread
of the unknown makers
of the pyramids, with their
names etched on the sandstones
Only the knitted brows
and the silent sullen forehead
of the Pharaohs and phantoms…
Only the death-mask-pale
of the shapeless moon, moon, moon –
Mother of bats, owls, shrieks
and cobwebbed cellars swirling with the
banished blue

But the other fire burns
in Babylon…the Sultans
and the sleepless sparrows
and horses stare on, in wonder
of the moaning graves,
parchment graces and the
swelling breasts of the virgin sea

The three great bells
wait for the Resurrection
in silence, in silence…
The skulls of the planets
dance with the maddening harmony
of the emptiness of the smokes…

The hands of Colossus strive to
tear away the lullaby of the sonority
and the rhyming clocklessness of times
from the womb of the lost tides
and lost souls – shivering in the
maddening numbness and clouds

This is the place where the last
pantomime steps down from
the proscenium and the first puppet
begins her show
This is the place where the Magi
reaches after chasing the starry
mirage of faith and Jerusalem
This is the place where
The Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost disappears
in front of the vibrating eyes of
Sisyphus and all other absurdly
happy strife and void and eyeballs
This is the place where the waves
become still and wait for Philomela to find
her lost voice This is the place where the last
teardrops and sighs of all the restless jesters
become one and the same
with the soundless dirge of the lost inferno…
This is the other world –
The world beyond all twilight meetings
and bohemian grains of sand…

Rhapsodies -- end
Reveries -- silent
Verses -- unwrite
Pages -- burn
Crickets -- sing
Finality -- attain... attain... attain...