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Music for the, Caged-dead

(Dead)

When worms have eaten from thy flesh

And no longer will songs help thee rest

On thy tomb crawls: vipers, toads, pests;

So shall your liar’s tongue beheld, sealed

From ashes burnt deep in hell’s tumult.

You have hours to consume, from thy tomb

Glories all solvent, now of oblivion—.

Browless! Speak loud, so I can hear thee

Deep down within your dreadful cage

I hear the music for the dead—with rage;

Their heart is full of stillness, as they gaze;

Murmur their music of the caged-dead,

With a haunting battle-cry, dethroning.

Mute harps play shrewdly the banquet:

Silent gazes from the scattered skulls

Muffled light, spurn hearts, lizard-fear

It’s all wrinkled here in the grotto!...

(Witness)

I see in my dream-vision, silent clouds

Silent clouds, over head, with no sky

Only eyes, eyes, so many eyes—

They turn to see me on their sides,

What stirs them so, I cannot say,

They fade and fade (away) in their cage.

(They Speak)

Said they to me: “Long we’ve been weary”

They claim there is no rest from strife and pain

Nor peace from the redly gape—nights

They speak of roots winding round their cage

And dead flowers on some grassy tomb

Innocent in their death, so they seem

I notice the winds cover up their weeping.

Eternally: they wish they were sleeping.

(Dream)

Shadows now filled my dream, the dead fading The in-descript formlessness of the dead My mind free from them, and they from me Ah yes! So many vaults in the mind Filled with rainbows and darkness Undiscovered mysteries, seas deep Vines that stretch to eternity Roots that storm Olympus’ Throne.

(Heaven)

When I woke up, the harps of heaven played Twilight had a hundred shades of green Souls gazed down from above the clouds Tears had turned to sapphires and gold And hearts renewed, their need for God; Everything, even me, was comforting— The night had flutes and graceful tenderness, And this was the end of my vision quest.

#933 11/26/05