Month: May 2023

Once again, we are staring into the black
hole of our desire. We have been here before:
the stupid punishment-beatings of the heart,
and the pointless empty promises of love.
Look away and listen instead: to the earth,
to her solemn and necessary music.

If only we had the ear for such music.
Possente Spirto perhaps, or Back to Black:
torch songs for a funeral. Under the earth
we go, and across the water, all before
learning what we already know: that this love
will tear us to pieces if taken to heart.

Here is our map of the city, from its heart
to the outer ring. Just follow the music
down its grimier passages to where love
may be lying in wait. The cellars are black
and the bodies hard; something must die before
the sun returns, to lighten and warm the earth.

A spring flush: along the river walk the earth
is all grass and Greek dock. Roses and a heart
on virgin skin; wafts of piss and skunk before
the altar as youngsters move to their music.
In the underpass, writing on the wall: Black
Lives Matter PROUD JASON ROCKS IT fuck your love

Such, if memory serves, are the haunts of love,
her cults and congregations. Deep in the earth,
a priest hole, the bellowing of great black
bulls; cries from the wounded sacrificial heart.
This is an old and unfamiliar music;
inward, recusant, as never heard before.

Then we remember those who have gone before:
our avant-garde, the storm troopers, fools for love;
first to be lost on the floor, in her music,
and first to be gathered, scattered on the earth.
No burial so deep as that in the heart,
no shade so dark as this particular black.

Before we leave, let us kneel and turn the earth
in our search for love, a still unbeaten heart.
Cue the closing music. Finis. Fade to black.