Measure me in marigolds For in a throw-away thesaurus, outside a church, I grappled with the dappled god of meaning, And lost.
What is light and dark? Where is heaven and hell? If not in the act of becoming one, At the last peal of the bell.
(Pardon my parody, but the juxtaposition is justified)
Am I pregnant with pain? Crawling on the polyester carpet of my burnt-down building, Wondering if the watchman can watch my agony, Or the torch is just an ornament, Like for a cripple is the cane. Should I wither or give birth? Is there not enough on this earth: Pain, I mean; the people they can pray, Dancing upon the anthill, A divine massacre so to say, Thus I ask for an answer and the Answer, it asks: Is that your true face, Or the mask of your masks?
Should I memorise now, The punctuations on my face? Or claw down to a carcass, The primordial preface? Whence time could be tasted, As old flint struck new bone, When men bowed and prayed, To the shape of the stone.
So, Summon me, Suleiman; Who darkened the Siberian plain, Red snow on his arrow-tip From the blood of a thousand slain.
Summon me too, Great Elixir, He of immortal name, Who tore down towers of sandstone, As part of a checkered game.
Summon me, Lady Myleth, She who crowned her husband as Queen, And watched as the kingdom danced On the watered edge of a dagger unseen.
Summon me too, the People Pleaser, For whom did the senate end, But died as an enemy In the circle of enslaved friends.
Thus, my answer to the Answer, Is a question in disguise For isn’t truth an orphan Born out of lies? I ask: Do I dwell on the delusion, That maybe everything is as it should be, That change is a charlatan Only a reflection of what could be, As the nature of all things, Is to echo and not sing, Why tie the knot and be anchored, When you can hold onto the string?
And the world It is falling And there are no secrets Left to share I am found Someone’s calling And all I need is To be there So it’s a goodbye Everyone And I shall see you When the summer’s sun Is finally won
I wish to speak with myself The conversation Neither a monologue nor a soliloquy But I am afraid I would not allow My own confessions This heart knows far too much Of envy and hate And much too less Of chance and fate; those dark mistresses Pulling and pushing The tide of each rebirth Should I excuse myself within reason then And let the age that passes through each of us Sunder me to atoms Annihilating; once and for all Each kingly cause And gangrene dream Festering upon the thin skin of mind; For the soul in the end is nothing more Than a shadow aware of it’s own existence. Or should I in opus thoughts claim The Midas Touch And let the pleasure and pain Every loss and gain, ravage me alive Into my own version of heaven and hell Beyond resistance and repercussions Or time and it’s tale And dare to be free For once all of me? Alas the soul cannot know Of which the mind did not sow Thus I remain here Within this blindness which seek The mirror left behind; And await my reflection to speak.
