Even for Angels
Triumphant, the violin spills notes
crying, moaning, softly serenading
each measure a strain, a hymn, a dance
every cadence, stroke, like the click
of heels over marbled floors in empty
cavernous bank vaults, bullion vanished
sieved through the tiny fingers of heiresses
countless hours of stone on stone stacking
crumbled in the instant of an earthquake
labeled Prada, or Marseilles, or Monaco.
Here in the depths, there in the heights,
where even for angels flight eludes,
the heavy sulfuric attitude of indifference
calcifies, giving birth to stalagmites and stalactites
the teeth of earth bound monsters, moistened
articulate channels of dripping, dripping, dripping,
darkness, darker still than darkest bowels,
not forgetting life so much as denying its source
bleached white fauna, eyes straining for luminence,
the heavy dystopian atmosphere of doubt.
With lyres, with harmonicas, with strings
a somber song is lifted, echoing, shattering
those sheltered kobold depths, the dwarven delvings
the fantastic creatures of dread wakening
the serpents and jaguars of explanation;
in little parks and cafeterias and musty buses
dangling with hang-on straps and smelly strangers
and sticky seats, and unavoidable overheard conversations
in offices wafted with the incense of burned coffee
and toasted bagels, in these known places
all the battle lines are drawn and crossed.
Silently.
