1
So why, wild Sky,
Have your eyes called
Why kept me sleepless through this night
Why called me up, when all this time
Your clouds kept from me all your rains
No darkness fell to hide my shame
No thunder roared to drown my cries
And did your rains come
Did they drown
my single shame, and mask my eyes?
2
Your tattered robes can’t hide your scars
Nor does the flagrant moonlight help
A billion hungry, searching eyes
Now pierce your naked loneliness
Go hide in one of your dark stars
Go cry your heart out
Out of sight
Our buried sins might just come back
And for your sake – put out the light.
3
Take up this cup,
and drain it like you’ve been parched too long
Lend these faint hopes one last breath
One last shimmering, before they sleep.
Make false love to these numb limbs,
Lest lack of warmth cause life to slip
Paper roses never die,
Nor wither. Why,
they never live.
4
Roses, roses, sweetly bloomed
Like Love does bloom with blood and thorn
Dewdrops ‘neath your leaves
Untouched,
Ungilded by this morning sun,
They will not live their diamond-lives,
Nor fade – as kissed by passionate rays
They wake with me and my grey dreams
My wakeful nights,
My lightless days.
5
.
.
Then on that beach where homeless waves
Come and go like nightly sighs
Oilscape sunsets come and go
Fond castles melt down on the sands,
And on the far-off fairylands
The skies and waters meet.
Someday I will sail,
Someday find
where my dreams have found newer eyes,
And newer sunsets seek.
6
A plodding ache.
Dry, glazed eyes
A sunken face, two blackened lips,
Bile in my mouth,
The limbs protest with tired cramps.
I’ve sailed and sunk a thousand ships,
I’ve built and burnt a thousand homes,
A thousand shattered shards of dreams
Strike deep roots in my pen.
Maybe the inkdrops
Of one tale
Will help another ship set sail,
Will help another bird take wing,
Will help one dream again.
~