and then our exile

"that an hour's pleasure bequeath enduring sorrow"

"when Youth and Pleasure meet / to chase the glowing Hours with flying feet-- / but hark!--that heavy sound breaks in once more, / as if the clouds its echo would repeat, / and nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! / Arm! Arm! it is--it is--the cannon's opening roar!"

thy face the contour of every glance
regarding my present days steadily
as though muted I could perchance grasp
at freedom and her lover--between these readily upset mirrors
shackles bind me to this dust, the impatient shiver
in periodic recalling struggles, the choral unrest
and colourless eyes echo, I cannot sleep--that
what you sow thou shalt reap, the weight
fifty cubits of unbearable suicide call for life
that restrain’ed and subdued my spirit of late
may seek horizions lacking tension rife, gestating
modest holdings of cattle and land, a borough eternally awaiting
and your impervious gaze softened of wear
that I at last enter the end,
to dare and address the midlands of my heart
that this dissembled abandon cohere, impart
a final leavetaking: drawn to white blades
after forty aeonal tracts of quietus,
here a footpath, there: dripping intertwin’ed forever
drowning in another’s sea, submerg’ed
but here: a footpath, the passion
and union are servants slaves encourag’d
and we each bear wreaths of thorns.

Suffix of tender certitude, harness,
of gilt promise--the dawn breaks even now,
is laden with expectation. Travel with me, then,
for the pastures of Elyse--let go the Earth,
cauterize the shadows of night, even there the stars
form nugatent constellations afresh. Their girth
is the span of my palm, and fronds of
brilliance twinning, beckon.

Curves her silhouette even now--her irises
bind my elbows and my knees. Syllabic hymn
rising between burning lips clos’ed and dry of heat
this desert I seek and the wastelands of aortic Dionyse
reaches trembling of pregnant warmth, orbiting as embers of dew
silk garments of vivid tangent hue_____lingering over my eyelets anew
reviv’ed their call, tumultuous foray plunging allure
twinging every exotic arabesque_____desperation, even "and God knows best":
this the distinction, this the subtlety
that truth even itself is made an instrument
bitter veneer, the hollow glimmer-gleam of brass
a beggar truly destitute, erudite braying ass
foul hypocrisy, stench without reference
__________or post-hoc purity
Narziss demarcating evil, and thus the Fall--
_____come, My Hands remain outstretched so
_____whole tendrils of saving grace
_____turn from this orthodox lowing--blazing heart, know
_____hasten to One, ere the
_____throat-rattle signals
__________the tones fall through, there is but one blade
__________there is but one tongue, there lies one shock’d stare
_____and the doors to the halls of My Citadel
_____are fix’ed, allegory morphing into Light
__________the tones fall through, there is but one blade
__________there is but one tongue, a Day few under shade
_____that every soul shall know what it has done
_____no vacuous intoxicant shall that Sun shun
_____no facet of the ornate jewel
_____the Earth has had its day, dust returns from clay
__________the filtering glance
_______________alternate
__________the filtering gaze
_______________the barrens
__________the steady gaze
_______________oh, horror,
____________________oh

bile rising, retching, overcome
that words fired the sky, in faltering despair
overcome, overcome, overcome
that the horizon--my eyes cannot stay, they burn--
that every spread particle grasp, arise, crush
this rampant seed, this full foliage lush
pulsing, the lactate bud of the deserted city
arise, oh ebony, oh oblivion,
look ye mighty and tremble
our visage rent, shards dissolving, to crumble
"perish the ‘Ad and Thamud, O Lord,
yet hear my call"--impale yourself a Roman,
patriarch, matriarch, of infamy, every common sword
that each hollow legacy become obliterate

the silence between silences
the split moment
between intake and release
it the shearing quake, reduced
to composing limbs and
shreds of limbs, the rims
of the sacred vessels
leaping to hold each life's
vital blood and etching each
held bud harvested as a bronze rubbing
the staved-off falls
then given voice: cataract
of spring waters pure brackish
from that steel, this choice:
the steel and mud of choice
yet even beyond the workings of this
misted glade, the second single call:
a Call of determination
no desperate contrivation mingling
through the joy and the sorrow
will only buttress reserved damnation
from here on the medieval accounting
is given its due, the wyrds of doubt
and imperious cue in preemptoral rout
as the dusty plains of Abraham
amass in the heavy silence
silence between silences
once at Jerusalem gate.

this the last narrative.