Every day a many-razored wreath
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Every day a many-razored wreath
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Rapidity of life with all its blades;
they fan out in a scintillating spread
and hypnotize, a peafowl's plumery —
overt or crouching in a secret glade
to dazzle or to denigrate the dead;
reflecting the effulgent lumin'ry
that bathes the ever-living with its rays.
A deadly wreath of promises and mays,
and must-be aspirations, knifèd prayers,
a blurry-mirror funhouse — strobe of stairs
unto the high delusions to ascend.
I fancy long, until I cannot mend
the ghastly, strange distortions of the mind
that stab so many pinpricks in the wall
of sanity — inflood the elements,
and midst the light and madness cannot find
a simple dark, a comfortable pall
to mute the yearn of spirit-bourne intents
that bubble from the silent spring to lave:
the figure mine descending to the cave.
Rapacity of life with all its limbs
and stringèd digits — gnarlèd hands of time
that thrum discordant rhythms — minstrelsy
saturnian. Thy skeletal divine
a-rattle with the brittle resonance
of agonizing aeons — slowly crawl
across the surface, ants and insects all:
the creatures under tread of titan's stamp.
They notice not their expiry, but pass
from form to form synonymous, the same
in all but countenance — in all but name
to face the same rapidity of life:
new-smithèd edges, and new-minted strife.
Words and images by Daniel Pendergraft
created for HIVE on June 29, 2020.