Of Dreams

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye,

And all the beautiful blessings of sleep.

Of wishes, things we can have if we try,

For ever obscure is the world, the reap.

You grasp the midnight shrine and look below:

The revolving lights, clouds of cosmic hue.

You see the eyes, glassed in brave, tainted glow,

And meet these eyes looking back at you.

And impressions which in the shadows lie,

By the eye of heaven in their darkness keep,

Fly from bondage and in blithe shrillness cry,

And the eyes weep, and weep.

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye,

And hopes, spread wide against the vesper sky.

A Morning Ode

A gray, pale morning light: the conscience of an untrodden day. Faded ivory, dashing black, blurring white; the notes seeping lustily from the instrument, falling face-first onto the cold, wooden floor. Thin, groggy beams of tired starlight and rusty sunlight bleed through the curtains, stretching across the dull and disinterested room like a light-post drooping over a blackened street, illuminating the dust hanging in the air like stars painted across the surface of the sky in a deep blue night. 

Etherized fingers of an etherized body moving across keys of emotion and color, pumping heat, pulling warmth, as the light grows and wakes: the sun stirs in the sky—a pale yellow face opening its eyes. Thin, groggy beams of tired starlight and rusty sunlight sit and stretch, now stirring, now waking, now rising, now falling. They dance and play, wasting away the day merry and gay. Grayness fades to beaming orange, thick and smiling, sweet and sliding. It sits, softly sipping the stretched-out silence, broken here and there by soft, sustained songs of love and longing. Such sweetness in its serenades it subdues, soft but strong. Cold, but calm.

The conscience of an untrodden day. Cold murmurs of a forgotten tune come to light in a chilling, chapped and blistered ode to the sunrise. Growing, the light joins, and an orchestra comes to play on this cold, tired, warm, lively morning. Crescendos of life and warmth, falling, now rising, then falling again. Strings softly vibrate and curve around the room. Music... drips, it giggles. The notes of a worn-out tune skip and jump, stirring and singing as the etherized fingers move across them, holding and releasing. An etherized hand navigates, on an etherized body, sitting alone in a cold and lonely room. 

Content

They come of age by late September

After a whole season’s work,

Soft and sweet and scarlet.

We sift through the ninety-yard run

Finding the fruit like stones amongst their withered shoots.

And we roll them into bins and count them for the market.

We cleave them to chunks with field knives,

And pass them round the back of the truck

And eat them off the rines

Spreading their white stony seeds by the headlands,

The juices streaming down our arms.

We eat in silence,

Resting our weary limbs as the shadows extend across the field

And the rosy light combs through the treetops,

Content.