Your Torch throws Light across a thousand cities.
I catch a ray or two,
for you,
I struggle on.
I have sensed your Presence wherever I have roamed.
I have tasted of your Love in dreams,
long since forgotten
and though I live for words and thoughts and books
and scratchings on a stone,
I live for you.
They say, "be strong, alone, for Love will find a way",
yet in the wake of hours,
and casual lines of verse,
the heartfelt tears of sentimental songs,
the twisting strings that guide the puppet
through Oceans, deep and wide,
I would be at your side.
The knotted clumps of kelp,
sundried, red and black,
that wreath those fractured grains of Hope
have travelled through the British Isles,
to salt-encrusted seas.
From rooming house to rooming house
whilst the nonchalant drink their teas.
Filtered rays of dusty sunlight
dance upon the feet of hours and seconds
and play upon your Light, your Torch, your Sensitivity.
But visions of my failures
return to mock at me.
Heatpipes cough, whilst rain streams down the panes of glass,
in the mystery of the foggy shroud
tht masks the dog-eared poem,
the smoking cigarette,
which burns and burns and burns and burns,
as the Madman dreams of Fire and Steel,
cocooned in webs of silk
and summons up his Muse,
to save his Soul,
or,
something of that ilk.
Yet in the silence of a rainy, Sunday afternoon,
a hidden voice plays out a scene,
with curtaincalls between.
The scene then to an act,
with certain style,
with memory and flair,
and dissipating smiles,
which dart about the room,
he claims, "I feel so lost'
and sighs forbidden tunes,
"but then, it's just a rainy, Sunday, January afternoon".
And lightning flashes blindness,
portrayed on sombre knees.
From rooming house to rooming house
whilst the nonchalant drink their teas.
I have no sense of Time.
Fingers running through thick hair,
while creaking floors and slamming doors
are ignorant to all.
The fridgid chill of Winter is upon us,
relentless, clawing,
yet, self-deploring,
and nothing but a frame of mind,
unhinged, it's lost its way.
A candle flares with fortitude,
and in its Pool there swims a thought of two,
swamped, lost, or just abandoned
to once whatever was?
I see your Light,
but as I see the Sun.
So let us take a stroll
perhaps in St. James Park,
to watch the diving of the ducks,
and the starkness of the trees,
which stand against the white-washed sky in Wintry beauty
the freshness of the grass,
and the sulking of our words.
Let us breathe outside our skins.
She feebly adds,
"Let us see the worlds of Blake!"
our portraits painted
as we walk on by the lake.
And is this what it means?
And have I missed the point?
As she tugs my sleeve,
our Paths have gone astray.
Her hair toussled by the wind,
mine, in silent disarray.
I have not yet seen myself grow old
though the Reaper's eye attends.
Lavicious tongue,
as if to say,
more Ophelia than her lover.
Belladonna or the blade,
self-inflicted, badly made.
If Life and Death are One,
and still apart
what sleeping draught
could cheat Him of His catch?
Such Beauty! O such Light!
Could Triumph and sustain.
Such Sensitivity could fathom endless wars
and swallow boundless seas.
From rooming house to rooming house
whilst the nonchalant drink their teas.
The Pain and Pleasure mingle in the fog
and cancel one another
be alone, be strong,
and strive to find the Torch.
Throw Light across my Path
in the cover of the night.
The universe disturbed.
Rolled into a ball.
Trepidation of the Spheres
could wax and wane;
the Force of Life outweighs,
my paltry fears.
The whirlwind of the Sphinx,
half man, half beast,
is no more than a smile away from Death.
I fear I dare not put it to the test.
A torch that shines and floods my Path with Purity.
Tho' fettered and enslaved,
oblivious to all,
but vague obscurity.
Your Light lifts up the shades in muddy rooms
frustration seems to swell in pale moonlight.
The cedar casket rub the subtle hue.
In thought and word and stone,
I live for you.
