Eternity sleeps in
winter clothes to the left
and to the right
as time paints her
laquered victims grey
silk and spit
caught up after all
in the minutae,
the gears and wheels once
set spinning entropic
to the song of thirty-two
invaders to hindered
sweetness,
back when this weary
black evening began
to lessen
slightly and
a splash of red marked
the sky’s spleen
to the left and to the right;
somewhere the
cogs are grinding together
and
slipping out of key;
the feedback prays
to a quantum mechanic
more tunemaker
than shelfbuilder
who has set
down the pen suddenly
- oh, exquisite schematic! -
and slipped the
toque up over forever’s eyes
as if to say
good morning darling
and
there’s an ending afoot;
there he stands
animating those laquered
waxen figures whose
cheeks now flush with
colour as
he points with a smile
or frown to the left and to the right
and bids eternity work
her magic:
daylight enters
the world like a scalpel
to the sternum:
all laid bare mystically
and presently
morning’s long absence
seems a breathtaking second;
no more, no less,
no further - freeze frame -
there is a centaur
somewhere to the right
is to the left and
he’s pointing
up the mountain.

Tags: poetry