By Aleksey Calvin

Oh, when we live to breathe

With leaden footsteps echo'd

Across somebody else's sun()-keeps

With a murky care

Of nebuled eyes ------------\/

Once swirl'd wet, vast, and chiming

Of our messy flower Pleasure

Would melt away

Unto the speckled city air

Where ocean dies...

 

And we'd observe our children drown

In misty dreams of silence

And, done with their sole poems,

Turn to futile rains

That tap the sink,

Our useless rusty crown,

Once damned with diamonds

That our dead lovers stole

To pay Charon;

Then left us with a weightless wink!

 

So, pilgrim, tell me... Must we wait?..

To tempt dim whirls of sick spring's motion

To take another step

Cross hourglass shards

And chase cruel fates

That flee us in their rags of red and gray?..

Or dare delay...

For frail is each emotion -

A butterfly -

And who but us

Shall step

Upon its wings and legs one day?

- 2015