Purgatory (Schopenhauer's Dream)

madman, flailing,

tearing a strip

from a world

that keeps spinning

as the milk white

flesh that clings

to the bone

sours in the

acid dawn;

charnel grey earth

that warms to the

touch of the

the shadow waltz,

shuffle marching

the yawning dead

into petrified fields;

an eternity of toil:

digging and earthing

their shallowing graves.

madman, railing

at the tide, how

it keeps on turning,

scouring the silted

stain of lives

that are sunk in

the deep of an

inviolate moon, its

smouldering curse

a heavenly glint

in the eye

of the storm,

raging black

and bluest rain,

the estuarine creep

washes broken faces

pounded in mud:

a savagery of kindness,

a merciful end.

madman, wailing

at the wall, the

withouted within

who scale its heights

only to measure

its fall; and there,

where communities

grow and home fires

cast visions of

worlds beyond,

the killer plies

his immortal trade

one by one 'til

the end of days;

the wailing wheel

of samsara turns:

his fate to condemn

those he can

never join.

April  2012