Elegy for Black Sheep Books

a far cry 
from stargazing 

       where, to observe free from the hegemony 
       of those more luminous stars 
       one must focus upon a patch of seemingly dim space 
       to permit the appearance 
       in peripheral vision 
       of those subtler stars 
       glimmering, glowering, guttering 
       more coal than candle 
       - no less brilliant, mind you, 
       merely perplexed in penetration 
       of the observer's polluted atmosphere; 
       mere phantoms -
       look for them and they're not there 

instead, burning among the chapbooks 
front and centre 
you might be fortunate enough 
to have your attention wrested for a few brief eternities from you 
by a rope of language, words woven tight 
and strong. Your concentration slowly drawn in to the poet 
you could fix your gaze in surrender 
as all other sights fade to nothing,
your universe reducing to a few perfect worlds 
in a few perfect words 
and those perfect mouths what called them into being 

       (the skeptics among us might have credited 
       the cosmic flickering 
       to old wiring, fickle and perverse, 
       and imps of inconstant sparks 
       but we knew better.)

One cannot know that which is not -
onetime knowledge reduced to mere memory, 
the captivating creators consigned to fairy tales, 
stories and the apocryphal annals of folklore and fable
scattered to the vagaries of anecdote like so much divine dust 

Come - 
the boldest stars swing now overhead, 
constellations whirling above us, needing no namers.
My eyes and mouth grow dry, beard hanging heavily upon me 
and I grow weary; 

        we have made our myth; 
              now we must sleep in it.SAUCE00Elegy for Black Sheep Books        Cthulu              Mistigris           201410 3ă                                   