Discovered at the End
of
Time’s Expression
There they were, exactly as Marcel saw them,
Swimming in a spiral bowl, like clowns in a circus,
each older than the other, phlegm
As they spoke, trembling hands, a caucus
Race to unconsciousness, skin blotched,
Eyes occluded, then thought: “Do they mock us
With their superannuated breath, with their wretched
Parody of health and youth?” Feeble crocus
In the filthy snow, blossom blasted bed,
Under a lightening flash, hocus-pocus
Illusion of what once they were, led
Beyond the boundaries of persuasion, hushed
In shadows of distortion, like the red
Thread of a lost horizon, and pushed
Over the cliff of death, held in suspension,
Unable or (worse) unwilling to go beyond question.