poem

On this night of Babylonian shades --
dark fabric, sarcophagus-blue draped
behind an enigma of too many stars --
comes fear of sleep, dream paranoia.

Too much has happened like voices
talking in a bazaar at cross-purposes.
Too much color has drained slowly
from the climbing blooms of temples.
Too much spiraling passion unhinges
one staring in a pool of bleeding desire.

So this bottle of half-drunk wine
will go all the way down to glass.
What else can one do with time
but turn it into a solitary dance --
a pirouetting on one piece of space?
Anything else would require talking.
A babel of tongues not cutting through
the frowning surface of a bronze god.

If you're alive, death seems ridiculous.
The shape of a woman deflects ending.

But the mystery of this dance is tiresome.

Maybe this wine will turn into a hardening salt.
A statue does not weep or have bad dreams.