The Sixth Form

To breathe auroras

above the mountain

in Thracian meadows

where Orpheus wandered. . .

in the valley of roses--

& the rose oils that

spring from withered kings . . .

**

Little eyeball that is tired of songs

roll up your lid

and look around.

It is day again!

the blue is strong

and turns to us

as to one

it has known for some time

but is not sure
what he will he say or do

still the birds bluster

and the bright wind thrums.

the aureole of silence

is the hum of penitents

passing through desire

to the font of language. . .

**

(Painted birds

above the table

dive and approach

the painted vine.)

**

The leprechaun, dressed in emerald green, danced easily in the circle of lunging snakes. Each time he tapped his cane on the ground, it was exactly the place the next snake would strike. The snake hit the cane and bounced off harmlessly and the little man continued to dance and sing. But the song he sang. . . that was the thing. . . a song I felt to be of Celtic origin. And the more I listened, the more dizzy I became, until I was infused with a  strange, radiant feeling of bliss. In that bliss I knew I was the song he sang. . . the music, the lyric and the voice itself. . . and I woke up with a knowledge words cannot explain, though words are all I have to make it known.

**

It will not be read. Who will listen? These stories of the dead, more alive than you and I. The world will not listen, and still I will write.

Such writing is for the sky, that has held our sorrows.

To endure the sea stains

and melon-colored lights, the pastels that carry a moral presence, however alien, embedded and untoward.

**

The darkness in us is very great. Let the guitars play and we will sing. The sea will twinkle and the stars will swim. the land will roll vastly in the dollarÕs wake.

When the sixth form comes, there will be no interest. Empathy will make it impossible to debate. The end of sophistry. The end of delusion. . . .