In the realm of fact

In the realm of fact
         the poet utters
syllables of faith
         dream cancels dream         
A new breed of towers
         in the golden city :
here is no empire
         but labyrinth
into which life strays
          Here he in her arms
lived the blind
         ecstasy of love and read
the prophetic script
         of the stars that dangled
above the bridge

Each day is a new universe
         the past trashed in time
Behold a fresh panorama
         arises out of the debris
of unbridled tides
         the low song of the cormorant
that devours space
         with every beat of its wings
A thousand ships or more
         in days long gone
and destinies beyond
         the circumference of hope

These are words
         lines from a canto
rife with doom
         sad infinities
taken to task
         A poet on patrol
records the strength and path 
          of the prevailing wind
Eden and Hesperus
         for the cultivation
of beauty and truth
         Beware of the slow
cancellation of ambition
         we are but clouds of atoms
the loose association
         of minerals born of the earth :
even the rose
         has greater definition
than our sluggish shadows
         It is a windswept stage
upon which we wake
         into the dream of act
our words fly up
         dust within a shroud
of dust and
         O how our sinews ache
how love’s great muscle
         dilates and contracts
sending pulses
         of pleasure
through our veins
         unknotting the hours
of unrepentant attrition :
         a coil or contraption
that fires and then reloads
         and fires again
until every hope is finally
         finally spent

John Lyons