At The Edge Of Night
At the edge of night
where love's blindness falls,
silence sounds
until the scream of the world
is done and the passage
of its moments ended,
sparse as stars
in moonlight.
The quiet indigos
of evening hear our bother,
the rattled voice
that mentions nothing,
the face whose undone smiles
practice prayer
for the penitence of going.
And going is what there is.
The world is far too old
for us, its misgivings
brutal as heartbeat
after heartbeat shed
so no sound stays
but the gentle calling
of the morning birds
affirming their own kind pleasure.
Your voice trails,
sweet as saffron
into cloud
that empties sunlight
into the day's miasma.
This is all there is,
the moon tired
in its evening,
the sun whose light
does not matter
until night
when extinguished
it picks out colours
of bright rainbows,
the weathering
of two smiles
that have twisted
and ended
like pleasures forewarned.
And now what comes
is nothing
but agreement,
you there watching lovers
open in smiles,
I alone
distinct
as pleasure
that will not come,
the eye of futures
mentioned
that bring about
promises
and the wide
mouth
of fancy
calling
every
name
it knows,
detailing nothing
but yesterday
as it was
before today.
John Cornwall
If you've any comments on his poems, John Cornwall will be
glad to hear from you.
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