Distant sigh of the wind and highway
cold through cracks on winter morn.
The dark of absent light and sun,
the stars that hug the horizon tight.
Ashes and cotton balls cling to lazy eyes;
flurries and dust thick on dry lashes.
The truth is laid before our heavy hearts.
The body is tired, it is rebelling against
the gluttonous need. It is fighting
the winter spirit. It is hoping for truth,
but instead plagues the host with
sickening disease. It is thick on
the glass. It is blackened and
burned, a stain forgiven by the
washing of hands and scraping
of shards. The rushing cadence
the heart resolves to, the hollow
electricity coursing through nerves,
the eyes awake and lucid. The perceptions
of the guilty shadow the innocent, the light
of truth futile to the cover of the past.
The future brings slick streets,
constipated morals, late nights and
early mornings. Chilled daylight masks
itself in a crystalline kaleidoscope of
glitter and mirrors. The pupils dilate.
Flies run through the blood. Fatigued
as aging tree bark, the spirit is
cracked and rigid. The lines
deepen, a black sleep that consumes
the eyes and flesh, and ignorance
blesses each chilled hush that creeps
inside our hearts of glass.
YOU ARE READING
Black Orpheus - Poems of Dreams and Dementia
PoetryThe collected poems of Nicholas Duke are presented here in his first collection titled, Black Orpheus - Poems of Dreams and Dementia. No other poet has embodied the sacred and the profane through metaphysical and symbolic verse that is painted with...
