Century

The magnet of centuries
Drags the ice of my heart
To a place of black shadows
Where the forgotten world is
Alive like the wise laugh of a child

I can see blue eyes hidden
Behind masks of Gods
Trampled on the oceans of desire
Their greatness like a wisp of floss
Pink and melt in the mouth

Your flesh, crawling like clouds
Over the deep sway of heaven
Dark, smooth as a crystal bark
Unmoved, a heart like a wasp
Yellow, black and silver in a blink

My eyes move inside me as thick
As treacle and your breath as stale
As the priest who moves without walking
Inside the deep cave where thunder
Echoes like the shore
When all is gone, gone forever

Velvet stain on blue as the
Immense sky goes to sleep
Try as I might, I cannot
Forgive or forget a whisper
Or a dream or a slight of hand

Nothing is like
All God sent us
To sleep

One eye forever open
In case the heart stops
And you leave
Leave me alone and I dine
On scraps of crumpled memory

Can a child breathe and smile
Without the gold of the stars
Without the air of the universe
Without knowing who made him
The oracle?

The dew on the shadowed grass
The apple tree, the air windless
The sky grey with purple song
Trapped here and a black hole
Gaping in the universe

Ah, the last exhale of life
As you look into my sharp eyes
And see the truth, sugar seer
What I never told you
And all I longed to say

And the children never knew
Of their dad, the man who
Gave them life

Hold my dead hand and raise
It to your salty rivers
Where bitter memory refreshes
The pool of life

In the shadows sits an old man
As lonely as a forgotten task
He closes his eyes - and dreams
of a past when raw boundless joy
made him as free as the unseen wind

The chimes set him loose
And he walked and grew tired
The ache - black like thread
Weak as a snob's glance
Fleeting as a sigh without a heart

I forget this world with all my might
And fall fast as a stone
To the time when existence
Was purer than belief
And I exist for a second
In a world that lasts forever

The shadow in the field
The teardrop on the leaf
Among millions

Breathe one last time so
I may smell you next to me
In my soul
Tangerine like the fire on the hill
And the centuries roll into one.

Damien Lane 25.8.2007