Nevermore

so much have we seen
the blindness of Homer, switchblades in action, 
spiders crawling across the edge of time
there were empty spaces
they built houses and the houses broke down
and there's a chestful of memories,
broken dreams and the debris of faded, fading time
swimming across a big nasty river
as autumn leaves rustle,
echoing through the blank realms of heart
and fog takes over from weary twilight.
it's just a duck, shot in the run, circling
around the whirls. shadows fall on death, on love;
angels used to bathe here once, they
would undress in moonlight, the wolves
would watch them from the hills far away
here, now, space & time comes together
and turns into a ballerina
watch her as she glides by your empty empire
and by the valley awash in light that never was
and by the loveless roots of the tree of mercy.
and it would rain on the forests
and it would rain on yellow cities, black oceans.
it really doesn't matter; we win tosses,
we lose blood, cats jump from roof to roof
smashing through the walls of doom & deliria
little naked people without legs and arms
roll through the curtains and wink at butterflies.
we lose tosses too, at times
but there's no blood left to be won anymore
though that doesn't matter either, never did;
all the towers have fallen tonight
they've built mausoleums & supermarkets
on every badass battlefield of the world.
wipe your face. smile at your ivory comb.
for there's no victory,
and there's no defeat
it's just a big city
and a big forest
making love in fond silence
as sad phantoms sleep in arms of sad laughter -
the idea, from this point
of time, of history and magnolia
is to keep the pistol safe,
to hide it from the bulls, the trams
and from the thieves of time.
there's only one shot left
and the music has always been makebelieve in any case.