Tempi · duri · per · i · vampiri

13 Transit

There is no illusion like today:
hands folded unquestioning,
face composed and serene,
eyes front, aware without expectation
or appearance of concern.
Back straight. Knees together. A novice
model of contemplative patience,
unhurried and unconcerned.

Amid the maelstrom,
good waves and ill,
that swirl vapors
of conflicting desires
and indecisions of possibilities,
the social hegemonies that battle
on all fronts seeking to over whelm.

And yet, when they depart,
the figure remains without
apparent perturbations
as the light of another day
transits the heavens
and leaves for night.

14 Knowability
There is no confusion like the night:
arms twist with golden turns
as jeweled fingers gesticulate
unspeakable stories, promising
horrors of delight and unattainable sorrow.
Shoulders bathed in sweat, breasts glow
and heave under a midnight chemise
as the air is cleaved and swept by long curls
of ebony hair that reflect aught but the moon
and starlight as they while in serpentine frenzies.
Eyes dart as vipers strike--freeze, observe, pause
and strike certain death or uncertain oblivion,
charting existence, mocking or praising
with equal abandon and delight.
Frozen lips never speak, as nothing
can ever be known
again.

Pity the lost thrall
Pathological individualism:
the cult, the apogee of culture.
Being as mono-maniacal
mythology, ultimate mono-crop
ripe for culling. Bulldozed
social hierarchy of quality.
Fettered and fetishized each
sovereign in a room
all alone.
Choice without purpose.

Gare de lyon
Waiting.
Waiting is divine
relief. The train
that has not come.
The cab that brought
me here. Time to kill
as an infinite respite
from doing, or being.
Identity foregone
in the silence. Being nothing,
no one. Past and future erased,
melded with everyone in mass
transit. We are a species
of our own locked in our own
separate world, between here
and there, leaving and arriving,
apart from all others who are
just where they are.
it is a silent world,
sounds without meaning
where each disembodied voice
merely announces possibilities
to move into another state
of waiting somewhere along
the timeless continuum
of being nowhere,
yet.

Faces in the station
Composed and silent watching,
conversations on topics of
movement, schedules and delay,
embarkation and arrival. Short term
thoughts. Immediate intentions.
Transient desires infuse the station
with flickering candle light,
illuminating nothing but the passing
of myriad souls for charon to ferry away.