A million candles burning
for the love that never came
You want it darker
We kill the flame
—Leonard Cohen
Light is most
magnificent
when it’s dark—
and I don’t mean just
any kind of murk,
but when you can’t
even see your fingers
before your eyes,
how they wiggle,
flipping the bird
to the stars
that wouldn’t show,
to your bill
that wasn’t paid,
to the sun
that takes too long
to reappear ;
every step a shuffle,
the scrape of
shoe-on-floor,
Karloff’s Mummy
dragging his bandaged
leg.
Your candle
in the morning
doesn’t mean a
bloody thing.
And your verses
on the diadem
of trees? Beauty
is ever-useless
when the young
are out at play
and the verdancy
of summer’s
just a case of
green-on-green.
It’s their death-gasp
strive to glory,
the crunch of
varied colour
beneath your toes,
that make autumn
worth the chill
and shortened days.
No. Tell me the tale
of the man
who lost his hands,
blown off in a blast
in Mariupol,
how he used his
teeth to pry
his wedding ring,
from the severed
appendage jutting
from debris;
add a mistle
thrush he hears,
with what’s left of
his shredded ears.
Make it toll
so pretty
as he swallows,
choking on his love
amid the rumbles,
the flap of falling
feathers.
Quickly now.
An adagio
sounds its best
in broken night.
Andreas Gripp
December 29, 2024
RF Image
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