Sleepless In Whereis Part 1
I’m stealing through a twilit realm, the ancient pale of Whereis,
passing chambers of an Heiress
(though no need to feel embarrassed)
through a magic mystic mirror hanging curtainless.
A glimpse near naked alleyways (denuded by the moon) ex-
poses Ghosts in gauzy tunics
carving symbols, round and runic,
in distended dingy dungeons of uncertainness.
Down misty streets of cobblestone – ancestral avenues –
patchwork paths consume my shoes
(chasing foggy curlicues
twisting, twirling by in twos,
floating anywhere they choose),
leaving footprints that confuse
vagrant wispy retinues
of the threaded wooden sticks that stalk a Puppet wandering.
Condensed in drops of fantasy, distilled in evening dew,
shifting Shadows I pursue
(wearing faces I once knew,
slipping slowly from my view)
turn their backs to bid adieu
leaving stars to tempt me through
Awful Tower residues
mocking treasures time outgrew
in the birth of old from new
framing pageants in review
midst the visions of the painted past I can’t help pondering.
Contorted candelabra claw the skyline’s walled suspension
caught in twilight’s intervention
– still unlit (in stark dissension),
therefore seething with a tension
in the quiet apprehension
of the Watchman’s inattention
to the night-time’s bold pretension
to her power, not to mention,
to her hyperspace extension
(far beyond my comprehension
of the sundown’s bleak dimension) –
on exhausted beaten boulevards of foolish fretfulness.
Oblivion depletes me, voiding haste and hurried hassles,
me, a simple abject vassal,
trailing moonlit floating castles,
– fickle feet, but fingers facile
grasping straws and pendant tassels –
as I stumble through the rubble of forgetfulness.
I think I must be dreaming as I seem to see these things,
neath a sky alive with wings
(hear the Nightingale, she sings),
midst the whispered murmurings
soughed by Phantoms clad as Kings
pacing palaces in rings,
while their hapless footfall clings
to the sagging sinking sands of midnight’s splintered splattered ruins.
Entangled in the swirling leaves that spin in dizzy flurries,
(while the wind beside me scurries
as an ermined hermit hurries)
lurk my sleepy woes and worries
(glowing faint’ but growing blurry)
which, when plundered by the demon dusk, I’d left behind me strewn.
Continued in Part 2
Copyright © Terry O'Leary | Year Posted 2012
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