Endless Nights of November

Endless Nights of November

I spoke of dead bodies

under endless November nights

and I waited

but nothing happened.

I fled without realizing I fled,

dates near and far              written on water

I swallowed in small sips.

Below, a finger, tense, severe,

pointing at me from the sea

like a domesticated circus bear.

I left everything I knew as mine.

Days past became shock waves,

forms of gloom the future dawns.

I’ve seen you look at me

five hundred times,

but look at me again           upright

against noon clarity. I’m not a visitor

from the world, 

I am the world!

I am the north wind tarnished

after battering bowed heads

of people populated by darkness

and death. The lamp’s fire

is no more beautiful

than the light of a bonfire.

I’ve seen thousands of men

dumped in a single grave,

and flowers blooming

on that grave, and rain,

and boats in the distance,

then a desolate, gloomy wasteland

and someone walking backwards forever.

I’ve seen this and kept silent.

Now my lips kiss without love.

They know a vastness

where cliff and sky

are not any different.