Monday, April 7, 2008

And Runeth on...

A jumbled mess from the Purtell series.



Requiem for the Moon



O! Sacred lunacy
Moon born madness
Born on a cold night
Bed of glass beneath her back
Onlookers hiding behind
Their dirty, bedraggled curtains

O! What words have I
To fill this noble cause
Of life? Dear life.
What right in telling
Of it's trouble
What judgment in my youth
Surely, these queries
Be asked of me.
Surely their answers tailored
To fit their finest idea
Of my image

If, by you, my image
Is to be found on page
In ink. I say it is
Better found, perhaps,
On midnight train rides
In darkened windowpanes.

"O!" They will say – seeing me
"O! It is you, who wears youth
Like a disease. You who is
Curled and
sick with lack of years
Whom we found clutching
His stomach by the rose garden.
Sick beside the angelicas
Ill beside the lilies.
Beaten by stone and river.
Bloodied and bruised and laughing

To which, I could only reply
"No, Not I. It is not I."

Standing tall there
Against plain white walls
Stained with dusk
Empty was I
A pen run dry
A page left blank

During this dawn of green
Discontent.
A symphony carved of cement
You were there,
Sipping coffee in
The early hours
Of the morning;
Speaking of me
Sipping lager in
The later hours
Of the night.

Sad
lovely
forsaken things
You and I
By the riverside reposed
Riverside
Cigarette smoke – thick
And overbearing.

Like this lasting gloom
We wore around our
Quivering bodies.
The sweet recluse
Of this.
Our dear moon
walked the
Hardwood
With sunshine at her feet
O How I loved her

How I held her
In my eye
A Queen
Born
from the blinking eyes
Of angels.
And she would nestle me
whispering
"Dear, the company you keep
Is better kept afar."

I sipped her advice,
Generously given,
Beneath these ashen stars
Burned into the ceiling.
Lighting my cigarette,
She offered more
And I softly replied
"Thank you – but
I've had enough to drink tonight."

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