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At night, this mindless army, ranks unbroken by dissent, |
|
Is moved into action and their pace does not relent. |
|
In step, with great precision, these dancers of the night |
|
Advance against the darkness. |
|
How implacable their might! |
|
Eyes un-dulled by moon, their arms and legs akimbo, |
|
They walk and live, hoping soon to surface from this limbo. |
|
Their minds, anticipating the dawn of the day, |
|
Shall never know what's waiting mere insight away. |
|
Too far, too soon. |
|
Senses dimmed in semi-sentience, only wheeling through this plane, |
|
Only seeing fragmented images prematurely curtailed by the brain, |
|
But breathing, living, knowing in some measure at least |
|
The soul which roots the matter of both |
|
Beauty and the |
|
Beast.From what tooth or claw does murder spring, |
|
From what flesh and blood does passion? |
|
Both cut through the air with the pendulum's swing |
|
In deadly but delicate fashion. |
|
And every range of feeling is there in the dream |
|
And every logic's reeling in the force of the scream |
|
The senses sting. |
|
And though |
|
I may be dreaming and reality stalls |
|
I only know the meaning of sight and that's all |
|
And that's nothing. |
|
The columns of the night advance, |
|
Infectiously, their cryptic dance |
|
Gathers converts to the fold - |
|
In time the whole raw world |
|
Will pace these same steps on |
|
Into the same bitter end. |
|
Somnolent muster now the dancing dead |
|
Forsake the shelter of their secure beds, |
|
Awaken to a slumber whose depths they dread, |
|
As if the ground they tread |
|
Would give way |
|
Beneath the solemn weight of their conception. |
|
I'd search the hidden corners of all this world, |
|
Make reason of the sensory whorl |
|
If I only had time, |
|
But soon the dream is ended. |
|
Tonight, before you lay down to the sweetness of your sleep |
|
Do you question your surrender to the drop from |
|
Lover's Leap |
|
Or does the anaesthetic darkness take hold on its very own? |
|
Does your body rise in service with not one dissenting groan? |
|
These waking dreams of life and death |
|
In the mirror are twisted and buckled, |
|
Lashes flicker, a catch of breath, |
|
Skin whitening at the knuckles. |
|
The army of sleepwalkers shake their limbs and are loose |
|
And though |
|
I am a talker, |
|
I can phrase no excuse |
|
Not to rise again. |
|
In the chorus of the nighttime |
|
I belongAnd |
|
I, like you, must dance to that moonlight song |
|
And in the end |
|
I too must pay the cost of this life. |
|
If all is lost none is known |
|
And how could we lose what we've never owned? |
|
Oh, I'd search out every knowledge that |
|
I could find, |
|
Unravel all the mysteries of mind, |
|
If I only had time, |
|
If I only had time, |
|
But soon my time is ended. |
|
EndedEnded |
