Having crept breathlessly up to
the very edge
Of the abyss, I hesitated and
would not look down
Where the moral cauldron
roared. I gave no pledge
To do what ancient philosophers
did. My frown
Could not match the Laughing
One. But still,
There was I—and there was the end
of the universe.
For some, old melodies return and
give a thrill,
As though the past were locked in
song and verse.
Not me. Nor could I bring to my mind apothegms,
Proverbs, sayings and popular
words. Meanwhile,
Out of the depths of that vast
chasm, rhythms
Of a different sort
escaped—Castle, Trial,
Metamorphosis, Mountain, Bride,
Little Man—and so I leaped, eyes
opened wide.
***
What a confusion of clichés down
this rabbit hole!
What a phantasmagoria of
neologisms!
The metrics of my mind went all
askew, my soul
Did somersaults, and my memory
shut down.
Someone yelled out: Karma!
Another: Pleonisms!
Not the voices in the House of
Fame or the crown
Of foolishness on the head of the
Beast, but signs
Absorbing shadows and glimmering
silhouettes
Conflated into music of the
spheres—all schisms
Born of conjugations drawn
through purple prisms.
What was there left for a poet to
do, on the brink
Of eternity, but go for it, take
all bets
And, throwing lumps of caution to
the wind, link
his consciousness and distraught
lonely pines.
No comments:
Post a Comment