Hades!

poem #137

photo by the author

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I believe the story
about the old carnivorous gate
in the ground at the end of the road—
the blank-eyed door
at the worldward head
of an old black snake:

      that is where the lyricist
attained the hatred of his tribe, 
and abandoned their bloody histories
(perhaps out of a supernatural
boredom) for the minutiae.

A cave closes around a man
who later sleepwalks into the night,
crying suddenly
in a woman’s arms, whom he
has never met—he is tired, 
hungry. They won’t let him
do anything. He begs for money
in the park. He queries everything:

            asphalt admits to nothing
      beneath the decaying bench,
      nor under the soft whip
      of the willow branch,
      but after it has cured
      (roughly six months to a year)
      a dull pallor sets in:

      the preternatural grey
of certain unsteady old men
who pace the length
of King Street every Sunday,
eyes no more than ten
feet ahead—the limit 
of their tolerance;

      the white that sets the ruined wall
within death’s demarcation;
illumination one associates
with shame; unnatural
skin the whole earth seems
to shed, having seen too much;
a cataract in the world’s whirling,

            that will one day reflect 
      the sum totality of light, back 
      upon itself in blind 
      and blinding ignorance.

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