Dear Life

 

Upon all the souls

Of all these poor saintly creatures & upon these very

Saintly apparitions of these very very

Saintly words of the very very dead gods you

Ask me to be a poet of this age and write

Something well,

 

New?

 

When love is merely a mortal look,

Long since the days of the camera began

 

But I will hear you.

Let you be my compass and agree

With thy heart as teacher to know my full sensibilities

And nothing in my verse nor in my time and

Not even in my mind nor soul

 

Which has never been pierc’d

With heat

 

Or truth.

 

For not in me is eternity

But only this temporal

And brief moment in time.

Copy die: nor can hold it

Up to the candle, the masses

No longer here to mourn for humanity

Eternal and cold

Like a machine

Everlasting

 

Oh muse,

I burn thee

Beneath the heart

Beneath the sea

 

Of lies

 

And sleep

Until you awaken

 

Again.

 

 

___________

 

R.M. ENGELHARDT