Fallen

Something went wrong
on my way up to the Shining City,
the stairs were no stairs
they smashed like porcelain,
and left me hanging there
on a floor that was no floor.
Naked under a light robe,
too naked, childlike
I didn’t see my keeper
sitting in the sun,
ready to lift me off my feet
to set me high over the void.
Alone I stared into the darkness
with broken hopes and bones,
even the mind,
my own mind,
didn’t answer me anymore.
I couldn’t retrace my steps,
neither recall the fall.
It happened long ago,
so long ago ―the shock,
the Exile from paradise.
Now I was stuck
in that center ― Nowhere
that point ― wearying
every compass.
Like Eurydice
in the dirtiest corner of Hell,
waiting for an Orpheus
who wouldn’t come
nor care,
I felt a penchant
for every fallen man,
a craving for every
leaving train.
But I couldn’t recall a start,
it had always been there.
Oh my keeper,
these memories I’ve got ―
It’s like a blood red flag
I will plant one day
on the shining top
of that City of yours.

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Aria

And entering these Daedalian years,
the loneliness, the cold delicacy
of the dark, entering slowly, step
by step, hand in hand, we couldn’t
help but watch each other stumble
— fall. Time took us by the knees
like water.

Separated from the ground, gone,
we could only lay, utterly worn,
utterly clear — as suspended
in mid-air. The distance between
our lips infinite and microscopic.
I was with you, you were with me.

After the deluge, after the struggle,
only the freedom of this place
was given. I could kiss your most
fragmented days — you held mine.
It was as simple as a musical
phrase. The worst part — over.

No one tried to adorn it with
words. Having to be satisfied
with drops from the tap, when
the highest lakes or an ocean
move in you, never soothes.
We were cut from the same stone.

So we just kept on getting through.
Accompanied by an aria in the most
hostile places. And those who saw us
dancing concluded we were insane
— they couldn’t hear the music.

Wonder

I do not dream, I watch the sea
feathered by a light wind,
the city of pale silver, sharp-cut,
small churches filled with an idea
of grandeur, death woven in poppies
and violets along the roads —
and I know not if this is real.
It would be unfair to say
I deserted this world — I was
deserted, the sun bathed
the empty space I left behind.
I became an imitation of light,
a lamp under a bushel.
And I no longer know which one
is the miracle — the world over there
or that flame burning with so little oil.
Tell me, Elisha, which one
is the mirage — I did dream
once — of a lighthouse.

Letters

It’s 4am — You write to me
from another land, another sea,
the city is waiting, your voice
upsets a structure of shadows.
The wind blows everything around,
I feel as though I return to being
a creature of flesh and blood.
It’s so hard to pull the soul away
from the body, like an ill-timed
offering — now words
stitch them back together
by a single thread. I think
I saw you through their fine lines
painting wisps in a red house,
a photograph upon my eyelid,
turning the winter pallor to amber.
It seems a fire lives in the lining
of our skin, after the destruction
of things, after the death of others,
a frailer but more persistent
flame burning upon the ruins.
It never tires and rises
like a lucent question,
somewhat unanswerable,
amazingly quiet. It’s 4am —
the words are gone or far,
I simply wish you were here
or I were drunk, or something
like — going to St. Petersburg.

The Breach

I walked through the night
to some place unknown
when I could no longer see
on any map any road,
waiting for the sun
to blanch the cliffs —
their quiet, untold past.
My sextant lost under
the hard stars, I began
to long for you on that
path, wanting to call
the darkness a lie,
wanting the curve of
your back as a halt.
Still it was too early
to know, but not for
that stone inside me
to crack — a chalk
whiter than my skin
and my bones, your
words came cutting,
cutting bright. It was
not on any map,
that line not mine,
and I tried to ignore it
I don’t deny, yet
it kept running,
running into chalk,
as if ceding to rain
and also, to light.