the rest is silence

imagine
the penitent thief
wearing the face of languid hunger,
doomed to wander the sleeping maze,
soft-spoken delphic utterances
lingering in his ear...
imagine

pimps and doleful prophets
cradling their harps and petting
captive, fatted calves;
imagine

Dymphna dancing sadly
'neath a weeping copper beech,
fortitude in madness
exiled from the human race;
imagine

bright-buttoned boys
all-fallen down,
wild flowers soft-embracing
endless banks of lamentation;
imagine

falling apart,
the auto-erotic precision of flight
a shabby percussion to the music of spheres;
imagine

salient inkslingers, demanding as ulcers,
offering cold-comfort as
you strive to remain silent under provocation
...smiling litigation
inviting you to dance...
imagine

Diogene's cup o'erflowing with spite,
salt where sweet required,
stale where fresh desired;
imagine

an empress of some unknown land
entombed within the symbol of infinity,
immaculate and inscrutable and
retaining her untrammeled modesty
under the hammer...
imagine

this world with all her cares and woes,
the clock spring unwound;
moon-struck saplings and desperate enterprises;
weak-kneed key players and questionable loyalty;
shrines and magnificent distances;
collaboration with the enemy as
fertile minds invest in covenants of salt and
drowned rats no-longer troubled by churchyard coughs;
rainbow-chasers and greasy sycophants
weaving leaves of black mulberry
and soi-disant idols devoured by mice;
dissymetry in the revelling of detested broods
while alliances slump and yeast blooms;
simultaneous keys and nests of white orders;
supreme carrion...

the rest is silence.