Day dawns dark, it now numbers infinity...
Life crawls from the past, watching in wonder
I trace its patterns in me....
Tomorrow's tomorrow is birth again/
Boats burn the bridge in the fens/
The time of the past returns to my life
and uses it.
Don't blame me for the letters that may form in the sand;
don't look in my eyes, you may see all the numbers
that stretch in my sky and colour my hand...
Don't say that I'm wrong in imagining
that the voice of my life cannot sing!
Fate enters and talks in old words:
They amuse it.
Hands shine darkly and white: only in dark do they appear.
Bless the baby born today,
flying in pitch, flying on fear!
(Wicked little Scorpio, doomed to die a thousand times
before he lives!)
They shine in my eyes and touch my face
where I have seen them placed before...
don't blame me, please, for the fate that falls:
I did not choose it.
At night, this mindless army, ranks unbroken by dissent,
is moved into action and their pace does not relent.
In step with great precision, these dancers of the night
advance against the darkness - how implacable their might!
Eyes undulled by moon, their arms and legs akimbo,
they walk and live, hoping soon to surface from this limbo.
Their minds, anticipating the dawn of the day,
shall never know what's waiting mere insight away
- too far, too soon.
Senses dimmed in semi-sentience,
only wheeling through this plane,
only seeing fragmented images prematurely
curtailed by the brain,
but breathing, living, knowing in some measure at least
the soul which roots the matter of both Beauty and the Beast.
From what tooth or claw does murder spring,
from what flesh and blood does passion?
Both cut through the air with the pendulum's swing
in deadly but delicate fashion.
And every range of feeling is there in the dream
and every logic's reeling in the force of the scream
the senses sting.
And though I may be dreaming and reality stalls
I only know the meaning of sight and that's all
and that's nothing.
The columns of the night advance;
infectiously, their cryptic dance
gathers converts to the fold -
in time the whole raw world will pace these same steps
on into the same bitter end.
Somnolent muster now the dancing dead
forsake the shelter of their secure beds,
awaken to a slumber whose depths they dread,
as if the ground they tread would give way
beneath the solemn weight of their conception.
I'd search the hidden corners of all this world,
make reason of the sensory whorl
if I only had time,
but soon the dream is ended.
Tonight, before you lay down to the sweetness of your sleep
do you question your surrender to the drop from Lover's Leap
or does the anesthetic darkness take hold on its very own?
Does your body rise in service with not one dissenting groan?
These waking dreams of life and death
in the mirror are twisted and buckled;
lashes flicker, a catch of breath,
skin whitening at the knuckles.
The army of sleepwalkers shake their limbs and are loose
and though I am a talker, I can phrase no excuse
not to rise again.
In the chorus of the night-time I belong
and I, like you, must dance to that moonlight song
and in the end I too must pay the cost of this life.
If all is lost none is known
and how could we lose what we've never owned?
Oh, I'd search out every knowledge that I could find,
unravel all the mysteries of mind,
if I only had time,
if I only had time,
but soon my time is ended.
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N. was somewhere years ago and cold:
ice locked the people's hearts and made them old.
S. was birth to pleasant lands, but dry:
I walked the waters' depths and played my mind.
E. was dawn, coming alive in the golden sun:
the winds came gently, several heads became one
in the summertime, though august people sneered...
we were at peace, and we cheered
We walked along, sometimes hand in hand,
between the thin lines marking sea and sand;
smiling very peacefully,
we began to notice that we could be free,
and we moved together to the West.
W. is where all days shall someday end;
where the colours turn from grey to gold,
and you can be with the friends.
And light flakes the golden clouds above:
West is Mike and Susie,
West is where I love.
There we shall spend the final days of our lives...
tell the same old stories: well, at least we tried.
So into the West, smiles on our faces, we'll go;
oh! yes, and our apologies to those
who'll never really know the Way....
We're refugees, walking away from the life
we've known and loved...
nothing to do nor say, nowhere to stay; now we are alone.
We're refugees, carrying all we own in brown bags,
tied up with string...
nothing to think, it doesn't mean a thing,
but we'll be happy on our own.
West is Mike and Susie;
West is Mike and Susie;
West is where I love,
West is refugees' home.
The killer lives inside me: yes, I can feel him move.
Sometimes he's lightly sleeping
in the quiet of his room,
but then his eyes will rise and stare through mine;
he'll speak my words and slice my mind inside.
Yes the killer lives.
Angels live inside me: I can feel them smile...
Their presence strokes
and soothes the tempest in my mind
and their love can heal the wounds
that I have wrought.
They watch me as I go to fall
- well, I know I shall be caught,
while the angels live.
How can I be free?
How can I get help?
Am I really me?
Am I someone else?
But stalking in my cloisters hang the acolytes
of gloom
and Death's Head throws his cloak into
the corner of my room
and I am doomed...
But laughing in my courtyard play the pranksters
of my youth
and solemn, waiting Old Man
in the gables of the roof:
he tells me truth...
And I too, live inside me and very often
don't know who I am:
I know I'm not a hero, well,
I hope that I'm not damned.
I'm just a man, and killers, angels,
all are these:
Dictators, saviours, refugees in war and peace
as long as Man lives...
I'm just a man, and killers, angels,
all are these:
Dictators, saviours, refugees...
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