Feast of the Secret Romantics
poem #91
Smirk, man, with secret conviviality. Speak. Sing only of primary things. Sit silent and silver as field stone at forest's sill. Watch the autumn crows raise Their cracked, slate nimbus Over a new world's swaying, golden head. Say nothing. In your books, confuse matters. Go inside to dinner alone and ask, Despite their distance, what your brothers And sisters think about the weather. Watch golden hay fever roll unremembered From their pale lips. Let them decorate Their concrete prisons, in memoriam... Do not weep for them as autumn corvids Split the time-ruled deltas of their houses To avoid the empty irises of towers. They can capture all the midden-light That pleases them; dance in shades; pour Libation down their fossil brains And watch as pale vultures come To remove and then to bury — In the cold sleep of a new world — Their bloodless hearts and swollen livers. Such siblings can be prayed for under any sun, At sill of wood or stone lip; crouched sniffing At toothless gum of dry salt harbour, once An embassy of the Atlantic bowed forever At their city's foot; now, the huge waste Of most of the map, blowing in a wind... Pray for them counting seeds at table, Fewer each spring, precious sprigs of time Rolling dry and fragrant through your fingers; Callouses softened and hardened again In the small dance of death that seasons Your sky-cooled skin.
Wow