Daily Archives: June 1, 2005

Let the great bells resound

The endless poise of would-be suitors
waiting in the wings
who watch in silence for some signal
that Beauty’s watchman brings

The darkened tower above the chasm
where maidservants kneel
in service to some kind of madness
Beauty seems to feel

The empty halls of empty armor
memories of campaigns
that sought to prove the end of fighting;
the hallowed hills refrain:

There is no use in wishful thinking;
time is much better spent
constructing moats of spider’s webs
or building tissue tents.

The tuneless song of untrained cantors
humming in the halls
who write their programs for recital
on the crumbling walls

The lamplight study of the martyr,
dagger to his breast,
who writes in tears his testament
while visions manifest

The quiet hush of the new morning
creeping from the moor
that serves as a forged invitation,
turned back at the door

There is no point in dialogue
when ears are closed to sound;
let loose the time saved for such things,
let the great bells resound

1 JUN 2005

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A June night like a fat man at a bus stop

The fetid dark sits on the house
like a fat man at the bus stop,
sweat pooled on the plastic seat
too narrow for his sturdy frame,
and the night jasmine’s heavy scent
assaults the senses, cloying sweet,
like the memory of his aftershave
after the bus has come and gone;
mixed with the bitter-sour sub-note
of endless folds of tortured flesh
chafed raw from polyester slacks
and trapped in nylon support hose.

Tonight the fat man’s breathing slow,
his rough exhale hot sticky clouds;
frantic mosquitoes seek its source,
sensing the vast expanse it hides.
There in the candle’s flicker flame
they hover in vampire patrols,
drawn by the jasmine scented stench
that seeps out with each shift or twitch.

1 JUN 2005

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