The silent infinite lifted from the white labyrinth;
Sails & shackles shivering in the sea air. Josie the Sphinx stood by,
Blessing the boats, a symphony in a grotto, a blue gateway off the mythic alley.
(Any preludes in your pocket, passenger? No, just a few arabesques
Lit by red light, thank you very much.) Lost chimera, the grace
Of shadows rose like an echo into the ambiguous clouds. The curtain
Of diamonds she tossed into the waters sank slowly toward the floor
Of kelp & raw coral, the Mediterranean light cooling in its ashen cast
Along the uneven paving stones of streets leading up from the harbor. Precious
Fuse, flaming twilight, traveler stranded in the body
Of a Saint—walk with me in the ache of Sicilian silence, bright & pink
As stars in the dusky sky. Blood funnel, passion leaf, hollow pane, darkening
Nude high in the ripped moon. Here, hold the slender globe of
Your lantern in the mute, pulsing night.
Fish, alleys & toads, paws & snakes, the skeletal frenzy. The long, electric
Worms of neon casting their bald writings along these brutal streets;
Pagan carpet, slash of scarlet idols. Cadence of the plucked
Violins, the magnetic wash of perfume across your body, the virgin owls,
The slanderous rain. Along the stairways of irony, below the cloisters of lunar
Fashion, I am still waiting for you, little specter, little dove. At the door,
Remember?—Your body a scirocco of bronze skin, ghostly & profane & feral
As a memory, corrupted as the spheres of the fermented blackberry. Black
Pottery, white jasmine. The brackish flesh of the hunger meeting your lips:
A few funereal spasms, a pleasing pallor, & the hard cherry of the tongue.
Through the fog cushioning the port, the scattered oranges of
The streetlights. Mythic blur, invocation of the sublime. Human altars,
Men & women collapsing under the weight of the anonymous, brazen night—
Its abrupt velvet so fatal to her glance, his stroke of oblivion, single arrow
Of some obscure faith. Angel of rain, consecrated ringlets unraveling
Like chains along your face as the shaft of light from an open window casts
Itself into the arch of the fountain. The veils of the sanctuary
Grow luminous in the dark, like the lips of a child lighting the evening fire. O,
Incandescent finger of the forgotten, touch me now. Destiny’s tomb,
Forgive me. The nothingness remains a voluptuous prayer, & in the distance
A whole landscape is assembling in the fierce & dissembling December winds.
Flags of the grotesque cities wave, banners of the cruelest lies.
A whole philosophy of shatterings, corporeal shards shifting with the rattle of mind;
So, raging elegance, precipice of the tabernacle, recall now the bare, tawny
Eloquence of those breasts, & beyond, not so very far in the distance,
Those balconies of winter laurel. So, here is my old pomegranate Gibson guitar,
Inlaid with studs of real ivory & etched with a ruby hummingbird. Angel
Of ash, I am singing.