After the invention of time

O desolate
whiteness of cathedrals

O shattered ring where the stars collide

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">What breath what child what twisted
mirror

 

Beckons this gesture, this desert residence

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">With its harsh
foretelling, this space

Where everything and nothing is possible

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class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Hungry fingers like
spiders of memory

Roaming the keys as a distorted web

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">A necklace of wire the bleakness of
sojourns

 

Sinks into us like a hot brand on ice

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Carving its fortune in
our scrawled desires

And beauty is simply the anguish

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class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Of a longing grown too
familiar

Infecting us like a language of fire

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">The harsh cacophony of birdsong

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0pt"> 

 

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">In a season that fled before us

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Like a mirage,
quivering with lust

And the white chalky mud

 

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Clings to our eyes, searching a
motion

In the
space that is no space, the time

Already past as we enter it, these words

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0pt"> 

That commit what is unspoken

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">As we drift like electrons roaming a
void

Populating
these fragments with utterance

 

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">This shattered temple this bread the
knife inscribes

This blood this wind this broken glass aloft and soaring

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">White wings of
divination these bones circled in the dust

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class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">This message still
pulsing long past the time

The messenger has left us

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Vague predictions roaming the side
streets like angels

 

O bleak oracle sheathed in linen, loneliness cosseting
the blank

Where
each emotion has its vacant symbol

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">And the night implodes to an exhausted
geometry

 

O watchman dozing under the luminous tower

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Tell me your longing
tonight tell it

This savage wind this opening of the seal tell everything

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0pt"> 

As you have heard it spoken

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">In the dull tribunals you wander
from

The mist
that rises on the violent lake

 

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">These desires that pool like seepage on
the sand

This
host devouring our burdens like a fog

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">While arcs of steel span out on the
horizon

 

And mystery humbles itself in the dirt and straw

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">The weight of this
thing we have invented

These sticks we bear crawling to a shallow grave

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0pt">