Three Clouds Medley

A Poem by Paris Hlad

Three Clouds Medley[1]

“Everyone Has Inside of Them a Piece of Good News.”

-Anne Frank

-THE SLANDER-

I crossed a line

Drawn in my mind,

Then stumbled to me knees

For in the sky came passing by

Three clouds in weightless ease

And I began to tremble

At what next that I saw there:

A band of restive angels

Hung like slanders in the air

And in my shame, I looked away;

Then, I began to cry,

For in their seeming, I did sense

That I was born to die.

-THE CHARM-

A heart adrift on some dark city street
Is like a truth that grieves in stark defeat

Among the shadows, with a lowered brim -

Oh, surely, what is prescient painted him!

He would not hold a glance, but seems to stare,
As children do when we are unaware;

Yet he is merely filling up a space
In which the artist shows

His hidden face.

-THE COUP DE GRACE-

A darling died, as if on cue,

As darlings often come to do

She left a daybook in her room

For him to read amid the gloom

Then fainted, falling from a stair

And got an answer to her prayer

For time discovered in her brain,

A tumor time could not contain.

-THE LOGOS-

I do not suffer tender thoughts

When gloom obscures my sight
Or fear unmans me like a ghoul

That looks to vanquish light

No! only when the roses bloom, and only in the sun,
Do I think on a loving deed that could in love be done
I only ponder what is good, when in my thoughts I keep
My promise to a loving God that love shall never weep.

[1] “Three Clouds Medley” brings together four independently written poems whose themes mingled for Paris while he was in hospital, recovering from emergency hip surgery and under the influence of morphine. Each segment of the poem is thematically tied to the next: Delusion (in this case, narcotic hallucination) to the evil hidden in all seemingly neutral situations, and that to the profound reality of death. The poet concludes that only his hope, his fidelity to God (love) might save him from existential madness. Underlying this conclusion, Paris vaguely references Fredrich Nietzsche’s warning: “Battle not with monsters, lest you become a monster,” and, “If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”