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∴

i have a memory of peace.

it stands
like a worn out myth
in the face of tomorrow’s
new religion.

i wonder if it really did happen.
i want to believe it did;
for then i could return
to trusty spells
and old incantations;
i could conjure it
once again.

(couldn’t i?)

·

till the earth
and strike a match,
cook your aromatics,
tie stout knots in yarn and twine
and read
the old romantics.

(no. no, it’s not working, anymore…)

·

“believe again,”
i tell myself
“slow down,
it’s slipping past you.
you were happy here, once.
remember?
you were happy, here.
once.”

 

but our little gods –
peace in pieces –
die.

they return to marble and canvas portals –
paint and chisel relics –
where they give evidence of having been;
(or at least, having been possible.)

·

they send like postcards
from Atlantis,
like love songs from middle-earth,
writing, singing, temping, teasing:

“i am real like fog.
you come into me and wonder
when i’ll enter you.

but this i do not do.

i will elude and i’ll encompass,
i will beckon and i will shroud,
and there is no end of me.
drink my milk elixir
and swim my clouded sea,
but stay too long
and you shall lose
the real
in reality.”

∴

 

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