From Days of Mercury

The music room
revisited once
wasn’t as it had been
Actually whispered more truth
But that may be a fantasy I need

The gallery you made floating onto the
Metroscape
the tiles you set in memory
of your father’s grotto in Bavaria
They reflect the cobalt shadow
Of the lyre you crafted
You placed
It out of reach and it is all that remains
Visible
The Geisha panels to assemble
On the south alcove you folded up
Shadow “in shadow into the midnight blue space for us to hide”
You promised so we could imagine we
Were anywhere
You whispered on our first night
I cannot summon
Your face any longer But I sometimes hear your falling voice

Sitting empty now for that many years
I revisited the music room only once
for ghosts (I guess)
But found only invisible traces of our lives here
That I should decline to view
Even as I want to hear our voices go
Out to short morning
on a blue-black
panorama
To drink in
slumber around
in some
new territory felt
All of the solemn
reserve by uninhibited muscle
Infantile learning
forward into infinity
Lay on mercury stream
so fast we are motionless
As we lock on each others’ eyes
Reflect black-green stylus
Sleep
dare
To remember in truth
being held by your
Surgeon’s palm Erased unconsciously
rest not
disappeared still

There is no day left
to make the time bend to peace
Hopefully it vaporizes
I see you lay there
No more
So then there is resolve yet
To be unlocked to make the time start
A vaulted reality
Airless as your eternal gaze

August 30-31 ‘44