troy and then
strange lights
upon this shore estranged
crystal bones
on jet black sand
carnelian pebbles
like embers
you came striding
barefoot
shorn
across a checkerboard floor
you were
the roaring-in-my-head
the what-i-never-knew
we drank
with the soldiers dark ale
and blood rum
heard tales
how they died pierced
or shattered limbs and organs scattered
across rubbled reaches
i tell you i said
today
i could not commune
with such as these
beyond the fortress walls
where leopards lurk
today
i could not write
with a straight face I had not thought
death had undone so many
i had not thought that in those low
places the air has yet to settle
their voices
still stir
who has time
for derrida
in a three ring world alive
with drewbachs and chessels
where portly scrod leap trigger happy
thru nosegays of rusty o-rings
wreaking haddock
as silk worms unravel
tapestries of transcendence
revealing fractures in the anchor stone
architectures
of uncertainty
lost in gloom
and blind stutter
half-baked doughboys
ricochet
off crystal walls
dreadlocked druids dance
the ham handed conductor
raises his baton a perfect
cacophony of voices
counterpoint
to studied indifference the royal
hegemony of the tongue
inflects the palette
cavalry demisemente
at each stop
along the line between Atonement
and Redemption retreating coolies
raise the alarm spurious
the sequential ordering of stations each
a feeble bulwark soon to fall
in the wings
the vegetative awaits
patiently
our demise
the sum of your fine philosophies
won’t fill a thimble in heaven
so don't be moaning the gloss
of lyric that parses
ever finer
without betraying the mystery
of movement but what
calculus defines thought’s
parabola fixes the stillpoint
in the arc
of yearning
in an age
of unbridled illumination each
passing ray
a random image
in the tapestry depicting tramps
and idlers on the square
of a sunday morning
all the upstanding
yet abed unaware
that even at this
tender hour
salvation has flown ashes
on the wind