We live in lack,
abide in absence,
vagrants in a vacuum:
this is not a planet.
This is an asteroid,
a comet whose eccentric orbit
brings us to a perilous perihelion
once every ten thousand years.
The rest of the time we are lost
in the desert of wasted grief
whose star sand runs
through an infinite hourglass.
The rest of the time we sleep
in caves of ice, and dream
a shared hallucination of the real,
a seance in which we summon
a sense of here and now.
In the shuffled deck of dreams
we deal ourselves at this grey table
a hand beautiful and grotesque
of princes, knaves and queens,
cups and swords and spells
and incantations. Remain silent.
Why should I not stay silent
when evil coins all the words?
Why should I not stay silent
when anything I say invites harm?
I shall retreat, retire, to haunt
the mausoleum of my murdered Muse,
hidden in canyons and dark declivities
where the Moon turns away from Earth
and shows herself only to the stars.
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