Banging on the Door

I cease to see, everything ceases to be, 

light and shadow converge, the night

buries me with its breath of stone,

I languish like the dew that comes 

when the night is at its most profound.

I lift my shadow with the trowel,

plunge my hands into the dirt,

reconcile the breath with what I dig up

and what I plant, the seeds of a vague

notion of time, and an afterthought.

I am the burning word on the tongues of my forefathers.

I am the master of my shadow and my oblong hands.
The rose wishes to stay where it is,

but the longing I feel for the rose is the longing

I feel for the beloved, for the one taste of 

liberty that a man might find upon the earth.

I gift a madness to my brethren, in the hands of their souls

they will find an aloof tantrum waiting to be expressed,

as if their eyes were alert to the breadth of brains

beyond their capacity to explore, to delve deep into.

I walk on the coals and hold my breath for the fear,

but not for the pain, for the pain is nothing,

the pain is living, it is only the fear of falling that I 

am consumed by, the fear of mangled flesh,

the fear of being hideous.

So I dance in the crazed atmosphere of night,

and relish in the blood that boils beyond the brim

of my flesh, the tangle of my veins, the master river,

the river of blood, root of angelic consciousness,

turmoil expunged. The roots, the roots are calling,
I sift through my flesh to find the answer to the 

blessed question of being, as to why I belong to this body,

as to why this flesh meanders through life,

a life that is without reason or hope or salvation.

Crosses terrorize me in the night, so white, so bold.

I hold my head and rattle the cage of dreams,

they howl in the night, they want to bite, mangle me.

But I hold no sway over them, they are in the cage of my brain,

but I haven’t the key. The lives of my dreams are 

full, fuller than mine, which is tethered 

to the wind and soaks in the pool of disconsolateness.

I’ve a cancer consuming me, a noxious bridge crosses

the vanguard road toward oblivion, and I cannot escape

the fate of this road’s apotheosis, there is no tangled

excuse, no card which I carry, which can pass me off

as more than what the eyes of the random passersby

see and do not understand. They see everything, of course,

and understand everything, but that is not what I am.
I am not everything, just as I am not nothing, I am something

in between, something striving to breathe, to keep afloat

in this sea of wandering waves. 

I keep alerting myself to tragedy, as if the world were askew

and I were the only one with the strength to set it right.

Fickle as a mad drummer, I cannot keep the rhythm intact,

I cannot save the world, or myself. I listen to the sound of the drum,

the rhythm is imperfect, as is this, as is my voice, but the moon,

alert in the sky, is amused by the way I continue to try,

amused by my childlike persistence, amused by the way others respond

as if there was something I had actually done, as if I had actually

created something new. The river is a circle, and all of us

are at the confluence of time and space, beginning,

so much to begin! And beginning, and never really starting,

a constant beginning, a beginning which is in fact our end.

And so we reconcile our past with the present and then

with the future, but we cannot reconcile the present

with the present, which is the only way to reach immortality.

Some say they have found the key, but the moment they 

announce it, they lose the key, the key goes skipping 

down the steps and the door to immortality laughs.

We’ve used battering rams on the door, we’ve tried

magic, but it will not open. I’ve seen women with their babes

crying at the door, weeping, scratching at it, bearing their

breasts, offering their children as sacrifices.

Men, full of fierceness, have pounded at the door

with their fists, but they end up bloodied and exhausted.

No, the door will not open for any of us. Only the grave

will open, only the grave welcomes us. This consciousness

is just an illusion, this life is but a sleight of hand,

the Great Magician will soon reveal Himself,

He will raise the mirror and the smoke will dissipate

and the Man behind the curtain will show Himself.

And what is truly lost? Nothing, just the thrill of living,

just the thrill of the illusion. Sober, perfectly and 

indubitably sober, that is how we shall all end up.
Therefore, be drunk, as Baudelaire said. Be drunk

until you raise your head and see with dark eyes

the darkness that has always and will forever be

the one true reality. The moon watches you,

as if she too weren’t just an illusion. Who do you watch?

Fear’s red herrings, those who promise ill-fortune and death?

Or the beloved who sings the mysterious song of life,

the apogee of life’s beautiful illusion, that blinds

and makes one a fool, or better yet, dead to one’s self

and alive for another?