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Tick, tock, goes the warden's song

As the singer turns to bow, I will not dance in time to this, "If only I knew how."

The player turns as if to say

We wish to say,

We wish to say,

But there is nothing more to say, but nothing else is left to say.

But I saw the twinkle in your eye,

Those Robin's egshell blue sky eyes,

And we would part our lips to speak those words we'd wish to say,

We wish to say,

There's nothing much else left to say, 'cause nothing else is left to say.

While Luciano's fettered song

Approaches fettered ears,

We break the sacred silence now and question, "why so long?"

And why so long, we had to say, was all we had to say,

As the player and the playwright laughed, and made love up on the field.

A beam of light shoots past the stage,

I think it's noon time now,

Or tomorrow's past, and we've all last,

Through yesterday's ordeal.

We clap in time to keep the beat,

As if to say, as if we'd say,

"Why so long? Why so long?

Why must the wheel spin for so long?"

The crowd there cried, "Player, a song for me,

For us, to them, to I!"

But the player's eyes did not meet mine, despite all I would stare,

As I soon realized there were no eyes,

No eyes that I could bare.

But through that convoluted size,

A million voices in the air (we'd cry), and a thousand eyes raised to that sky,

Yet I saw the twinkle in your eye, within your Margaret's blue sky eyes,

As our clapping died to make up time.

We smiled as your eyes met close with mine, a creasing lip, upturned, and hung to dry.

I smiled as your eyes met mine.

Still we'd speak no unhallowed words, like a solemn exchange of names,

Instead, with lips made to pray or kiss, frowned at the player's gift. This silence made

For hymnals played by an iridescent imp,

Left no room for words and thrills,

And a longing, lingering kiss.

We left the cantina Sunday morning, arm in arm in hip,

On St. Bartholomew's Day, or Christmas Day,

We never really knew.

She said her name was Athena-In-Gray, and she wore a red silk dress.

---

Amid the Sunday noonday sere,

With squalid Tut in splendid huts,

Without a single spoken word

She led me to a soothsayer. 

She led me (by the ear) in stride

Down the Grecian mottled roads

In scarlet robes of salmon roe

And I couldn't help but hear in spite

Of our distance from the passersby,

"My, oh my, how fine, tonight,

That arm in arm they march tonight!"

And the widows, in their black-tear rolls, crow,

"Tonight, tonight! The lighting's right,

A perfect time for a burial rite."

Arm in arm in song in space

(this holy song and holy space)

We lay down alms in lieu of palms

Whilest palming bread and gutter beer, in place of guns and words we'd hear.

Without a word, without a word,

Without a single unhallowed word,

We look them in the eyes and squint,

And with our squeegeed eyes we'd say,

"Why so long, why so long,

Why must your own wheel spin for so long?" 

At last, with sordid moonshot eyes

Did the diviner's shack appear.

With nervous, slender fair hands dry,

Athena-In-Gray did sign

How love and foe did intertwine

With the soothsayer's willow bow.

The seer turned to meet my eyes, with pupils blackened pitch,

And cockleshells and tortoise shells, all hanging from her neck.

Great wires of hair, of black and white, and a shock of orange there,

Did frame her lawless symmetry, of spherical shapeless dress.

I thrust out 4 guineas with nervous hand,

And a most unsteady gait,

As I await my fortune bell,

The seer would ring replete.

And not unlike my actions, now,

I tend to grow cold feet,

But as dreams of freedom took root and grew,

I too grew to my fate.

The last eye I'd meet before the song

Of the soothsayer's craft complete,

Athena-In-Gray, a steely blue, replete with starlight and sun kissed feet.

---

I awake with with firm feet on a twilight beach,

Where no water could reach to catch me.

I crane my neck in search of life but soon find none but one,

A pale red dot beneath the sky,

Amid the azure horizon line.

I swallow a sigh as I could see

This was a dream within a dream, and to my surprise

I soon surmised

That word did flow before our eyes,

As the red sun, into Athena did reprise

A song and dance beneath her skies

Her robin's eggshell blue sky eyes.

Of apple-colored Athena's robe,

Between Daisy Duke pyjamas,

And velvet armaments of gold,

Emblazoned with her dogmas,

Those paint stains, purple, green, and gold,

And red upon her lips.

I would lay for a thousand years, through a thousand tears and crawl among the lame,

For I am very weary now, and here I would like to lay.

But I cannot lay, in fear that you,

That he, that we, that they would speak to us those hallowed words,

"Why so long? Why so long? 

Why must you lay with him so long?"

Because then there'd be none left to say,

'cause nothing else is left to say.

But who else will lead me to my dread kingdom, to my dream estate?

Where shingles of cottonbells and cockleshells,

And ambitions laid in state,

Like mourners lay in heated days

Atop the Beachy Head?

Who else but you, Athena-In-Gray, who else would dream but you?

---

At once the constable did rush to the scene

To a squalid seer's thatched roof hut

Where Magdalena-In-Red, standing by,

Did clutch 4 guineas by her thigh,

As the absinthe drinker rose to her skies,

In Laudanum, and Prozac cries.

No tears did fall from the constable's eyes, nor words

From Red or soothsayer's lips.

What words could they, they'd later think,

What words remained, in tattered heaps.

They wished to say,

They wished to say,

But there is nothing more to say, but nothing else is left to say.