Richard H. Dunsany | + Follow Poet |
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Through the Water Through One Midnight

In a noxious night as I looked across the pier,
something in my stare 
screamed and wept to empty air.

What was it? 
Surfacing in that netherworld river?

I was seeing something, finally
I was seeing a veil of darkness lift
and a golden dawn arise
in another timeline where the superhuman
I have achieved--where deceitful animation does not exist.
 
Simply I say: your perfection blinded me.
Ah, "perfection"! It's cruel 
to us both 
to call you perfection, 
Unfair, even, as to twain 
the ethereal 
unfit for this world. 
I will think of the gold, and I will think
of King Midas, and how you defy him 
and have turned my spirit golden just by being, 
just by assaulting Fear 
with it's own medicine.

I am chased here now
Gravity and I are one
through this mountain of mist I run 
downhill
as incarnate disease whirls through loved carnations
in every picture we're in
and all the poison residue
left by my aging sneakers
that have been the eyes in the back of my head
they stare; grant me utmost haste,
this pair and I are bound from waste
and I dare not turn to look
and I dare dive blindly,
I pray for a clearing 
and one Soul for hearing:

"Summoned by ingsoc. 
Allow this dance across your balcony of darkness, 
‘I love you’ wields smooth eccentricity 
settled at the bottom of the glass, 
to rise only when in the throes of anguish. 
I don’t understand—I fail to be better. 
Sinking ships in sinking dark sweaters she wears
whether or not I tether this feather to my heart—
give me Never."

And yet the Anti-psalm plays:

Outta bed, atta boy,
Quenched every day.
Withered like grass,
Miss that sass,
Deceitful heart dismay.

And what can halt the falling sensation that embraces

and stalks

the faces

and stops

in the hierarchy of this fearsome foe we call 
The Human Mind
that is designed 
to become hollow after a time
of being told it will see hallow love,
but never working to see the dove 
return with the olive branch
builds a cold doll of the heart
that speaks a language called Mockery
and the sweet song I'd heard 
was merely the heartbreak
of mockingbirds falling 
into fate.

As I stood up from my Fall, 
you became the mist 
that passes over this selfish, loveless city 
at 4 AM. 
I perceived you as a specter, 
then reality, 
then dear, 
and now, dream clouds 
that slowly
 
reshape 

slowly

disappear... 

clouds that smile 
and say

they say

they say...

"Time to get up."

Copyright © Richard H. Dunsany | Year Posted 2017

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