Dark ascending hardened hours
Climb the twisted stairs of night,
Recoil and wrap the trees and bowers
With chill of evil, mist of fright.
While in the caves of hot desire
The animals of lust retreat
And bank the passions of their fire
And pick dry bones for scraps to eat.

Never have I ever dreamed
A thought as unabashed as this:
Love was not all that it seemed,
Was more of lust, was less of bliss.

Never dared I think before
Upon the nature of the night:
Day’s lion dying midst its roar,
Passing into realms of blight.

Never did I comprehend
These things related in their heart:
How love and darkness, merging, blend,
Link, intertwine and never part.

Through pale air it spreads is way,
Across the patterns of earth,
And then, of a sudden, intruding
Upon my lips and tongue, exuding –
A taste of dry light, racked by the promise,
Into me going and then, once more, spreading.

I sound the golden trumpet:
A pledge of dying, a search for tomorrow.

My stomach is churning, the anger outgoing,
Revolving; insidious demarcation of loving
And damning; eyes lit and reflecting
But never quite knowing —
Absorbing without comprehending —
A sponge to be wrung by hands that are cracking.

I sound the golden trumpet:
A search for tomorrow ‘midst ashes and darkness.

Leaving me now as if from a mirror —
A hospital ward cleansed of germs and decay —
Now alone and brooding,
Stooping to polish or straining to conquer,
No better than before (but better tomorrow?),
I close the curtain. The moon has set.

No more echoes the golden trumpet:
Failing to heed it, I no longer sound it.

1
The rain was falling downward, downward,
(Angry protest in the night),
When there came the cloud of “languish”
Drifting slowly into sight.

2
Caress me now, o winds of boredom!
Lazy rains, weigh down my eyes.
Sing to me the rotting promise,
Chant to me the perverse cries:

3
Water rippling, spreading outward,
Light and color shimmer by;
Night the time of obscene gurglings,
Twisted dreams all gone awry.

4
Melody of hopeless being,
Promise of a dissonant tune,
Cry now, loud now, lift your voice now
High above the brazen moon.

5
Sing the song that has no ending,
Chant the anthem of the night,
Listen deeply to the music:
Song of hatred, song of fright.

6
Once more whisper ere departing
Words that often are unsaid,
Beg of night its precious largesse,
Pray you now that you are dead.

When the amber sky of evening rests its weary head upon the hillside
To capture a fleeting look at the eastern stars,
Then I climb to the brook that rests noncommittally over the hill
And listen to the sounds of the unadulterated dusk.

The night people come like obscene shadows on drawn curtains
To drink the coolness of the waters, or curse the stinginess of the skies;
And I would count them one by one
And know them by their hour, and their place.

The air is what I love at day’s ending;
For it carries with it all the morning’s dew,
And I can breathe it into every pore I own
And cheat the splendor of the proud and boastful dawn.

Night View I

I
torn by the promise
declaim to the winds:
Bear me forth
Up to mountains
Where peaks are as raindrops
(clean, unspottled
and not without sadness
unto the fourth generation).

Mark my words, law
is a law
unto itself
and life not much more than an echo.

Why do you wait, and for whom? ……

I
Understood
(once — eons past)
forces:
pushing
inter ac tion s s
BUT
now ho hum well what can I say save
save me lord god yes for I am not yet
of the winds
myself
and want to rest tonight,
lest I lose tomorrow.

 
Night View II

I
(slit by the claw)
Dug my nails into flesh
and shredded the beast
down to his tendons,
reveling midst blood
of martyred ideas.

I
am sick
in my way
(as who is not)
these days things being what they are and all
that.

I
laughed a bit
(why not, may I ask?)
and scorned tears of death
‘neath thin sheets at night
And fell asleep with fear.

I
know a thing
very worthwhile:
you act it
and feel it
but cannot believe it
inside…..

The sparkle of the crystals gives a vibrance to the snow
As reflecting stars at midnight lend tiaras to the glow.
Trees hide gentle goblins ‘neath their covert arms of gray –
The night takes full possession of the lands of conquered day.

The lane slides softly forward toward the rustling of the leaves
As winds whip wild patterns ‘round the brackets in the eaves.
Moon-glow creeps full-shrouded thru the autumn clouds of steel
While down the fog-drenched valley night-bells start their distant peel.

With trembling brow I plod on towards the fireside at the inn
Where I know the brew is burbling and will warm me from within.
But while I walk this roadway dank my eyelids quake with fright
So I strike a jaunty posture and I whistle down the night.