sleepwalking

Sleepwalking

invisible yet spawning by the myriads,

they crawl already through the empty nooks,

behind the grids of circumvented periods

laid to confine uncertainties in looks;

but nightmares populate the world unseen

mocking which palliative tries them to screen.

like the thin curtain covering the window,

that with shy peeks at distant hills reassure

the enemy brigades did not yet swallow

this last refuge where peace and rest endure.

then, as the curtain falls again,  the mind

is free to cheer the horrors left behind.

or not...a doubt immediately ensues:

maybe the troops are breaching in just now?

the justified repose is to refuse 

the tainted heat the hearth gives for the woe 

of lifting back the curtain up and wait

that days and nights remain a lifeless slate.

till the evil that was once so dreaded

becomes the single sight that might betray

the sign of one's relief: as th'ennui wedded

in pastimes is rigged by a pregnant delay:

the crawling fears abandoning the tomb

bring hope the worse might wither in its womb. 

it feels like madness... welcoming the fear

that's known best, so that any other thought

receives the shape that is to it most dear

in the farewell to what inquiries sought.

at least the mind, its focus found again,

in knowing nothing else, esteems it's sane.

how long can it go on? the lone envoy,

that happens to advance out of the dark,

carries geographies of shades that toy

with their bait to ambush on its spark;

the firstling gasp suffices to aline

thousands of ghosts that multiply through the spine.

like hordes of hitches-breeding bedded bugs,

that through the sacred sheets of virgin sleep

suck dry the comfort of the cuddling hugs,

the clefts' unfathomable broodings creep

to pray upon the frame of guarding peace

and shroud in poisonous ooze its cracked fleece.

the hidden dens that teem the sudden blow

now hold in thrall the land of florid springs,

with stealing coils enveloping the eyes' glow 

as from each hem a dulling echo rings

that breaks the luring of contented life

with the lurking of incontinent strife.

how can the visible and its glossed future

be one again in wishful harmony,

where the sprouting conquests tally nature 

to tunes their wounds around the axletree

that the thirst for defined vessels cleanses

while th'awe the spirits into dances tenses?

no, if ever joy had been spontaneous

suspicion grants it never did convince;

old practices become extraneous,

the words that once provided comfort wince

under the pouring insecurities

that blink at blots of scurring boundaries.

the days of beauty are vain memories,

when bodied dreams have walked on supple legs

where rubbing rustles bundled miseries

in pillars of the warbling sphere, which begs

to open up the substance of its song

in blessings that to trembling trusts belong. 

still, beauty does inevitably flare:

in blooming fabrics that their glory borrow

from drupes that, to be plucked, their pulse ensnare; 

through fleeting fancies that like phantoms follow

where an instant and its mellow harness

hold the rainbow wings that the insects impress;

but now it's just for mockery: despair

derides the thoughts that made encounters more

than senses' blunt cocoon to a dead stare

that droops its sprouts in an unblooming spore

where nothing breeds, and knowledge can reveal

the shadows had no substance to conceal;

there never is a sweeter flush behind a smile;

nor truth that's truer than the laying word;

the face that launched the ships, turns hails sour  with cold guile;

and deaf notes are enhanced in disaccord;

the hope of harvesting a moment core

is lost in th'appearances the tricks deplore.

even so the mighty lion- yawning

on his domain to track the parcelled scents

levelling the blood toward the dawning

of jaws that whet the air his prey ferments-,

the surge of his excitement he assuages

when nought is the resource that him engages.

emptiness remains, regardless of the efforts:

the heat that's accidentally deployed

when the scourge of thoughts imagined comforts

exceed in permanence all time's destroyed

contingencies, is placed inert in nouns

that pluck the birth of longings in stale crowns;

happiness, that promised to remain intact

when the consuming toil had earned the sight

of unconsumed delight in the abstract, 

is spoiled by senses' diaphanous insight

that seek behind the happened certainties

a higher heav'n that truth from matter frees-

depriving clustered husks of hurried bowers 

and desires of breath to breach infinity. 

not even the arousal of the flowers'

intense incense for hourly vanity,

can sacrifice on th'altar to admire

th' enticing wonders of the balmy air.

'tis impotence, that the imagination smears

in too base dirges for too bright a tune;

the immaterial chews piers and cheers

to pierce a scene with clots of an obscene moan;

be it by inaction or defying friction

other distractions immortalize destruction.

the burgeoned pigeons that in the streets go 

none they care for cars and trucks that wouldn't slow,

and the silken tail-that no envy to the peacock show-

adorn the asphalt with the spasms of the last throe;

and it seems it must be relevant,

the potency the pigeon has left vacant,

were it not that flights to th' eggs' bosomed nests

deface the crude embroidery of bolts

instincting th' elements with parching crests

that leeward breast must etch with vaults on hatch'd jolts,

topping fertile tumults with countenance

that hosts no place for th' essence coming hence.

since rest can't delve in trodden immanence,

but sleepwalks through awake indifference

these hands, that hold the curtain up, renounce

the prayers that pluck the clouds circumference

for the precursor of the bowing rain,

and let the dust choke down its shades in vain.