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Sleepless In Whereis

I'm stealing through a twilit realm, the ancient pale of Whereis,
Passing chambers of an heiress (with no need to feel embarrassed)
Through a magic mystic mirror hanging curtainless.

A glimpse down naked alleyways (denuded by the moon) ex-
poses ghosts in gauzy tunics carving symbols, round and runic,
In distended dingy dungeons of uncertainness.

In misty streets of cobblestone - ancestral avenues -
Patchwork paths consume my shoes (chasing foggy curlicues
Twisting, twirling by in twos, floating anywhere they choose) ,
Leaving smoky residues in the footprints that confuse
Of the threaded wooden sticks that stalk a puppet wandering.

Distilled in drops of fantasy and fading into view
(Twixt the treasures in review, awful Towers peering through
Distant dimness bent askew) , shifting shadows I pursue
(Wearing faces I once knew) , lost - no stars to guide me true -
Midst the visions of the painted past I can't help pondering.

Contorted candelabra claw the skyline's walled suspension,
Caught in twilight's intervention - still unlit (in stark dissension) ,
Therefore seething with a tension, in the quiet apprehension
Of the watchman's inattention to the night-time's bold pretension
To her power, not to mention, to her hyperspace extension
(Far beyond my comprehension of the sundown's black dimension) -
On exhausted beaten boulevards of foolish fretfulness.

Oblivion depletes me, voiding haste and hurried hassles,
Me, a simple abject vassal, trailing moonlit floating castles,
- Fickle feet, but fingers facile grasp at straws and dangling tassels -
As I stumble through the rubble of forgetfulness.

I think I must be dreaming as I seem to see these things,
Neath the sky alive with wings of a nightingale that sings,
Midst the whispered murmurings soughed by phantoms clad as kings,
Pacing palaces in rings, while their hapless footfall clings
To the sagging sinking sands of midnight's splattered castled ruins.

Entangled in the swirling leaves that spin in dizzy flurries,
(While the wind beside me scurries, and a hermit ermine hurries)
Lurk my sleepy woes and worries (glowing faint but growing blurry)
Which, when plundered by the demon dusk, I'd left behind me strewn.

The forgery of multitudes between the silhouettes,
(And discarded cigarettes, neath the haunted parapets)
Mock my lonely echoed steps - mock my lonely echoed steps
(Struck like clicking castanets- struck like clicking castanets)
As I lace unlabeled lanes, erasing silence' sullen treason.

The mossy stones befuddle me, in winding rue rosettes,
(Lost within the oubliettes, and in vials of anisette)
Midst the mazy minuets, and the purling pirouettes
Of the fugitive Grisettes (flaunting charms and amulets)
Who, in flitting shades of arching bridges, linger longer, teasin'.

Along the When I'm drifting, just a stardust castaway,
Weaving, threading by cafés and deserted cabarets,
Just a gauzy appliqué on the river's crippled spray,
Chasing Fools along the way through the strands of yesterday,
Neath the throbbing peal of sobbing bells of spectral cloisters quaking.

In belfries, high and haughty, alabaster knights perform,
Riding stiff against a storm, steeped in clouds of chloroform,
While the raven skies deform and my shrivelled shovelled form
(Watching bats in steeples swarm close to candles waxing warm)
Hides in hallowed hallways, hanging, shoulders weary, weak and shaking.

Above me hover grinning masks and visages of Queens
Spewing fatal final scenes (against a scarlet sky they lean,
Dreary dripping guillotines) of demented doomed Dauphines,
Traced in opalescent ballrooms only tattered time remembers.

The hidden hands of Harlequins (while floating free, unseen,
Behind abandoned shuttered screens, inside of shrouded Halloweens)
Tap (on tumbrel tambourines) a dirge (with tattooed tones pristine)
For me (a heap in ragged jeans within this crazy cluttered scheme) ,
Trapped interred in toppled stone chateaus that dismal dawn dismembers.

Rogue breezes pierce, benumbing me, I feel my fingers freezin'
(In the cockcrow's purple season) though within, no rhyme or reason,
Caught impaled upon the jagged edge of early morning's breaking.

The chill evoking silver chimes of Nodomain start knelling
As the searing sun looms swelling, and their melodies hang dwelling
In the cloud drifts' care, revelling, but the Sandman's too compelling
And my weariness impelling - though my eyelids risk rebelling,
Where I'll fall, there's no foretelling for the starry sky's past telling,
As I fade beneath the flaming forge while embers tremble, waking.

poem by Terry O'Leary
Added by Poetry Lover
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