THE PROMISE OF HAPPINESS

The black birds have made

 their lazy haunts in the branches,

 Their teeth must be shivering considerably,

 And their squawking must be

 the trumpet of fear!

 Now many more are seeking the sky;

 Silent Nothing is empty,

 and its silent indifference covers all.

 One thinks now only of the shining light,

 Perhaps it is playing

 hide-and-seek somewhere!

We would cling to the crumbs

 of light as a universal responsibility.

 All the heartaches of the great world

 rest on the cold arms

 of sooty skeleton-trees, and atone: 

Existence may mend itself, and rise above!

 The murderous choking cough cuts

 my throat like a knife-blade,

 The only cause of my misfortune!

 - I have sought thee many times,

 but at the other end of the line

 there was a dead silence,

 a moving, tearful plea.

 - Slowly I was swallowed up

 and sucked in by self-pity,

 that I am ultra-bleak even

 in the field of honest

 confessions without you!

 - From beyond, he flashed

 his throat-cutting voice, 

and my half-conscious self I could not know:

 What was thy heavenly look at last,

 A deception and a deception at once,

 Or a cheap trick of thy revenge,

 a cheap trick of thy discreditable revenge?

 - The fog now forces the survivors inside

 to be even more intensely blind:

 I try to find meaning for the future

 with the reasoning philosophies

 of Cassandras and Theiresians:

 So that I may still have

 reason to look ahead,

 to believe, to trust,

 and end each day with the promise

 of a blossoming happiness!