Sleepless in Whereis

I’m stealing through a twilit realm, the ancient pale of Whereis,

passing chambers of an Heiress

(though no need to feel embarrassed)

through a magic mystic mirror hanging curtainless.



A glimpse near naked alleyways (denuded by the moon) ex-

poses Ghosts in gauzy tunics

carving symbols, round and runic,

in distended dingy dungeons of uncertainness.



Down misty streets of cobblestone – ancestral avenues –

patchwork paths consume my shoes

(chasing foggy curlicues

twisting, twirling by in twos,

floating anywhere they choose),

leaving footprints that confuse

vagrant wispy retinues

of the threaded wooden sticks that stalk a Puppet wandering.



Condensed in drops of fantasy, distilled in evening dew,

shifting Shadows I pursue

(wearing faces I once knew,

slipping slowly from my view)

turn their backs to bid adieu 

leaving stars to tempt me through

Awful Tower residues

mocking treasures time outgrew

in the birth of old from new

framing pageants in review

midst the visions of the painted past I can’t help pondering.



Contorted candelabra claw the skyline’s walled suspension 

caught in twilight’s intervention

– still unlit (in stark dissension), 

therefore seething with a tension

in the quiet apprehension

of the Watchman’s inattention

to the night-time’s bold pretension

to her power, not to mention,

to her hyperspace extension

(far beyond my comprehension

of the sundown’s bleak dimension) –  

on exhausted beaten boulevards of foolish fretfulness.



Oblivion depletes me, voiding haste and hurried hassles,

me, a simple abject vassal,

trailing moonlit floating castles,

– fickle feet, but fingers facile

grasping straws and pendant tassels –

as I stumble through the rubble of forgetfulness.



I think I must be dreaming as I seem to see these things,

neath a sky alive with wings

(hear the Nightingale, she sings),

midst the whispered murmurings

soughed by Phantoms clad as Kings

pacing palaces in rings,

while their hapless footfall clings

to the sagging sinking sands of midnight’s splintered splattered ruins.



Entangled in the swirling leaves that spin in dizzy flurries,

(while the wind beside me scurries

as an ermined hermit hurries)

lurk my sleepy woes and worries

(glowing faint’ but growing blurry)

which, when plundered by the demon dusk, I’d left behind me strewn.



The forgery of Multitudes between the Silhouettes

(and discarded cigarettes,

neath the haunted parapets)

mock my lonely echoed steps

         – mock my lonely echoed steps –

(struck like clicking castanets

         – struck like clicking castanets –)

as I lace unlabeled lanes, erasing silence’ sullen treason.



The mossy stones condole with me (within the oubliettes

draped in blood and tears and sweat

sometimes dry, more often wet

quite like drops of anisette

sipped in moments one forgets

self-reproach and raw regrets)

midst the midnight minuets

and the purling pirouettes

of the fugitive Grisettes

(flaunting charms and amulets)

who, in flitting shades of arching bridges, linger longer, teasin’.



Along the When I’m drifting, but a stardust castaway,

weaving, threading by cafés

and deserted cabarets,

just a gauzy appliqué

on the river’s rippled spray,

chasing Fools along the way

through the strands of yesterday,

neath the throbbing peal of sobbing bells in spectral cloisters, quaking.



In belfries, high and haughty, alabaster Knights perform,

riding stiff against a storm,

steeped in cloudlike chloroform,

while the raven skies deform

and my shrivelled shovelled form

(rapt, while bats in steeples swarm

close to candles waxing warm)

hangs in hallowed hallways, hiding, shoulders weary, weak and aching.



Around me hover grinning masks, veiled visages of Queens,

feigning fatal final scenes

of demented doomed Dauphines

(against the scarlet sky they lean,

dreary dripping guillotines),

traced in opalescent ballrooms only tattered time remembers.



The hidden hands of Harlequins (while floating free, unseen

disbursing secrets sibylline,

amongst the manes of Halloween),

tap (on tumbrel tambourines

behind abandoned shuttered screens)

a dirge (with tattooed tones pristine)

for me (a heap in ragged jeans

in these crazy cluttered scenes),

trapped interred in toppled stone chateaus that dismal dawn dismembers.



Rogue breezes pierce, benumbing me, my ears and toes a’ freezin’ 

(in the Cockcrow’s purple season

as when nightmares should be easin’

and the Zephyr winds appeasin’),

so I reach for  rhyme and reason, 

which endeavours leave me wheezin’,

caught impaled upon the jagged edge of early morning’s breaking.



The chill evoking silver chimes of Nodomain start knelling

as the searing sun looms swelling,

and their monodies hang dwelling

in the cloud drifts’ care, revelling,

but the Sandman’s too compelling

and my weariness impelling

– since my eyelids risk rebelling,

when they’ll fall, there’s no foretelling

for the starry sky’s past telling –

as I fade beneath the flaming forge while embers tremble, waking.