Curtain

(For Sonia)

Everly frantic sylphic romantic
blighted in a benighted land
where babble and revel warp all dreams
and mock jewels bestrew the sand
 
I reach to the stars even venus and mars
seeking the hollows of paradise
above a margent green where all unseen
greed gropes at the gilded prize
 
meadows all torn the few flowers are lorn
lush fields lie fallow in fret
the spirit all fey their aspect turns grey
seasons blanche in sullen regret
 
the moon lay awake all night by mistake
yet are the fires not lit
dawn slows its becoming is not welcoming
look the embers lie cold in the spit
 
the feast is forgotten fortune’s ill-gotten
true love is free bartered away
hearts half broken can only betoken
dread night that yields not to day
 
the age dissembles in rage reassembles
adrift is the conscience divine
compact is broken doom is bespoken
bad faith is dribbled like wine
 
the birds don’t feed garden’s to weed
all is calamitous still
turn of the wheel the currents congeal
all’s grist to an ungodly mill
 
in a darkling bed am I sweet bled
nor is recompense anywhere close
heart so in dread all feeling is fled
repining I wane with the rose
 
endgame is near all’s fever and fear
archangels appear not at hand
in horror abstaining nor any remaining
the redeemers abandon the land
 
come let us away dawn’s here not to stay
dark night but covenants harm
after ages of sin hark reckonings begin
Hear the Last Trump blaring Alarm!
 
[© R.Kanth 2023]

 
Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).