After the sleepy throats of the first birds
Had creaked a madrigal into the sky,
A thin sun rose to separate the curds
Of sea, but my drab visitor stayed by
My bedside, and assailed me with the words
That had flailed sleep from me. Though I still fought,
Attempting flights to day, or back to sleep,
The cobwebs in his eyes, and on his coat
Moored all my life to him, till in the deep
Trenches of his dark language I was caught.
Rain followed sun: and on the wall outside
The flowers shuddered and shed sudden tears.
The room was bare: there was nowhere to hide,
Nowhere to go. He whispered in my ears,
Two shells filled with the memory of the tide:
You are afraid. Often I’ve watched you run
Panting up blackened stairs, flight after flight.
On the next landing there was always one
Who made retreat. I bring your darkness light.
Meeting will happen by my changing sun.
Name whom you seek. In me he will appear.
Call me Nijinsky, and applaud my dance.
A rugger blue, and offer me some beer.
An editor: plague me for an advance.
Or think instead the one you love is here,
Her brown eyes happy, breathless from her bike:
And very gently kiss, as once you kissed,
Or take me for your enemy, and strike
The mask I wear, and I shall not resist.
I shall be God, or anything you like.
I shall be he whom you will never find,
Except in me: I am the last pretence:
Dark angel of the world, who moves behind
Dayfall, and whispers truth to innocence,
Hurting it into tears: yet I am kind.
Acceptance sleeps in light, abandoning there
The tedious climb, the fighting in the heart.
He paused and whispered: ‘Else you must prepare
To ask what godheads or what kings depart,
And I shall answer, shadows on the stair.’
(Dominic Frank Moraes)
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