Seek You Nowhere But Here
On the other side of the world
(pick any side)
you find a lost penny,
it is encrusted with layers of your skin
and is as dry as long spilled blood.
You find there the baleful,
the emblematic heraldry of woe.
The fool behind the knave,
both the henchman and the harlequin,
the sinister wink of the Jack of Hearts.
On that far-side, mirrors face inward
to nothing but yourself.
You see your image raging in an empty room.
You look upon the unhinged horror
of that unleashed autonomy of the many
as they run to the cliff edge as one.
Better to say at home - if you can find one.
Better to rent space in a larger cage,
better to be blinded by bewilderment
than end there, raving for no reason.
On that reverse side of anywhere
an ill-faced moon hangs sallow
alive and hollow, it is a bare and vexing glare,
a feud everlasting,
a fathomless quaff of odium
and an enemy
to every Spring flowering of love.
Don't go there - maybe you cannot,
maybe you don't know the way?
Then stay,
stay with those ghosts you know.
Do not ever dream or think to go.
Pray to that God deep rooted in your mind -
seek you there and hope to find.
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2023
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