If ever man will surely be,
If any man will not,
If every man will surely see,
A light which may relate to me
Or hear a voice across the sea
That sings and wails of revelry
Then they shall lose their souls—
You see?
If you begin life searching
And looking for a love
Then you will be disappointed
When the rhyme slips out
From under your feet,
For it is merely madness.
And if you will call a specter,
Phenomenon of grace,
Then you will know, all deep inside,
That time and place
And order and space,
And nothing more is nothing less:
The mockingbird’s escape.
Around the corner
Up the stair
Near the window
Beware! Beware!
For gravity is a serious force
That never cracks a smile.
Out on the rooftops, there you are free,
As free and full as deep desertion,
Lonely longing, and insertion,
All for one and one for all
That, together, all will fall.
I’d prefer not to.
No. no.
This song is not for me.
Nay. nay.
This jig, I find, is
Passing strange
And passing strange, the passing doubt.
The mile marker rises to ten.
Light from light all wit descending.
Funny youth with silly tales.
Born and bred, a baker, mending
This man’s hunger, that man’s thirst,
I do not think that he will speak to me.
And I have known the endings, known them all.
Have seen the passion light, the hammer fall.
Have heard the tidings, heard them all,
Whether this man’s verse or that man’s chorus,
They lead me down to deeper circles,
Filling my mind with the stench of their passing
And passing away without quenching my thirst.
I am but a popinjay with imagery most
Ridiculous,
Who never sought to master his craft,
But only to float, and, floating, to breathe;
Breathing to live and living to die,
For here, at the end of all things,
Upon a frozen plane, before the devil’s mouth,
HERE ends the argument.
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