i have no doubt that at least a few of you will get where this came from long before you get to the end of it. it’s really kind of odd to look back on the things i wrote ‘so long’ ago. i had a tendency in my writings back then to waver between the literal and the surreal. and i pretty much steadfastly refused back then to say anything straightforward.

~~~~~~~

Into the face of a thousand endless screamings . . . .
(Like never before this silence had a name),
for all in its own self-righteousness
seems as if in silence only breaks the spell —
imprisoned by the words this hunger imparts . . .
and like forever, dawning on a sea of rust,
it is shaped by naught but silence
(the silence of a dream),

and then it dawns with a light brighter than solace —
shining through a glistening veil
of the tears the maiden sheds alone . . .
(and her daughter suckling at her breast
was once more to me than any view of heaven
could ever hope to dare become),

and the child knows nothing of it —
at least, so I pray.

Into the face of a presence that once I let surround me,
and out of a darkness I have yet to comprehend . . . .
And yet to be forced to live with the gnawing realization
that everything I have loved so well, I must do without . . . .

It is a different lifetime
(but one that must certainly be lived with understanding),
and the hope to live but once again without the fear.

Again, like diamonds glitter and the killing of a dream —
a forfeit of tomorrow and the wonder of eternity —
and it screams before this effervescent window,
and softly, it turns about itself,
waving as it drifts towards the door —
(a holiness that comprehends no indecision),
and like the calm before the storm,
it is the passion of eternity and the silent world below.

~“Into the face of the nemesis”, October 23, 1989