Solomon Sorrows

I find freedom only in feathers of greater things than I

Smaller things that have never known a cage

That have never known complaint

That have never once found agony in who they are or what they do or where they fly

Beloved things bringing beautiful things

They bring with them some promise that this will be better

That the boy will be better

He sees them where he goes

The crows

He has seen them for years now, strange things that fly out and away from him but leave behind small freedoms

Such as feathers

They do not leave him, these crows and he has found some contentment in their company and tonight he must wonder aloud

To whose distant flock will these words fly to

These spilled-out texts, illegible scratches in any other time weaved fervid by madmen and their trembling fingers

This uncaring piece that does not dare ignoble itself with the presumption of poetry

This piece which only says that he sees the crows

I see the crows and I think of Inanna

Why?

He sees the crows and he finds at times

His dreams promise peace and

show him his beauty and

Show him his wish's beauties and

Show him his desires beauties and

Show him the beautiful furl of some

Awesome instrument of freedom unfurled out from behind his shoulders, beautiful things, once white and shimmering and splendid and now black and sweeping and striking, no less beautiful than they were before, no less resplendent in how they attend their prince

And the freedom comes, and he weeps

He does not laugh. His joy is too heavy for laughter alone

The joy from him

Who flies

Bring to me the tearstreaked corpse of a dead dreamer never seen never loved for I will weep for him

Ribbons honed on live wire slashing slender fountain tapestries of red despair

and yet

We still find the time to write

To beseech this agony

To, in our little moments

Attend to ourselves if not to save the soul then to at least wipe the tears it wept

To take the boy from his horror and his pain and to give him a little light

A little solitude

A little something

Anything

Fucking anything

Selcouth Noctivagant of constricting briar your lambence is gossamer upon discontent twice-pleated some strange delicacy of peace found within unerring silver Hushed whisper at the edge of dawn with whose tongue can we speak of you? Hieratic king of the Orphean realm your presence is ephemeral and your gaze demanding the long quiet of your repose scarce unrelenting Blessed secret hung from a crescent moon with whose eyes can we see you? Quiet god whose presence betrays itself stranger melancholies are rarely seen than the lucid gray of your eyes thundering silence you unfurl your flight heralded on echo Silent lord who intertwines neither here nor there with what pace can we chase you? Lover of the copse where nightingales lie we murmur but scarcely know we follow the path your footsteps leave the grace of your cloak casts a shadow under which we gather Hallowed spectre gilded in folkloric silver with whose touch can we feel you? The turn of your shoulder is sculpted marble the salt crusts under your eyes you deign us with your presence you arrive a hierophant in haggard wake Unanswered secret hung upon the ives with whose mind can we tell you? Redolent monarch between the trees we know your regal stature in the twisting of the brambles something haunted you serpentine the willows cascading scales of gray-ghost and all

Cobblestones and they hum beneath our feet and their memories seep through the soles of our shoes into the trees into the bark into the leaves into the sky we are pilgrims and our steps echo in the bark in the leaves in the trees in the sky. Streetlights bloom in the twilight and their amber halos cast out the darkness where they shine and they shine on our faces our hearts and our souls. A prayer and it is cast in amber and their warm arms hold the night making it gentle making it safe. We are no strangers to the dark yet the light still warms us

whispers that we still are worthy of its love.

Fog and it whispers it whispers through arches through halls into thoughts into walls it rises from the stones gracing the ground in ghostly veils a bride for the mysteries that live in the echoes of human longing in the din of human murmuring in the breath of humanity living.

A glass and it cracks as a bird calls as if the hush wished to etch itself here to say i was here i existed it was and forever is and it only wishes to be seen to be told it was and forever is.

Shadows filter between lattices flicker upon forgotten existences. Distant and absent once-weavers of tales untold kneel silent at unlit braziers in solitary congregations in prayers so old moss grows at their edges. Mercy is held in the soft hollow between cupped hands and refused by time's refusal to remember yet it exists all the same. Whose feet are these that I walk with? Whose tongue is this that I speak with?

Lamps in empty halls cast long shadows into yellowed pages into ticking clocks into forgotten mourns. There is ink under my nails and they testify to battles in pages where unravelling words of threadbare lace cast themselves unto eulogy. Beyond this world is where our covenants became dust and became sighs and became naught.