12 BARS
Twelve rusty bars, one frozen lock -
Confined, sublime, an ancient Roc,
Enclosed inside a barren cage -
Her catacomb in sundown sage.
Of former days there is no trace
Except displays of fallen grace -
Twelve dreams, abiding in her place,
Are free and dwell in yawning space:
12 DREAMS
Of wings unfurled, and seething eyes
That dredge the depths of dawning skies
Unclamping clouds that hang below,
Once ice, dissolved in morning's glow;
Of clutching winds that carry free
Beyond a leaden anguished sea
Dispersing dust of stifled stars
Midst chunks of chain in slave bazaars;
Of swooping to a silent shore,
To perch beyond the ocean's roar
Amazed to feel the sobbing breeze
Message the leaves of rooted trees;
Of stalking trails of twilight tramps,
Within the fog of lighthouse lamps
That blink forlorn through caldron nights,
In search of shades of errant Kites;
Of darkling vast deserted lands,
The windswept stones, the shadowed sands,
Where ghosts of Moorish maidens lost
Conceal their groans in mourning frost;
Of blotting out the bloated moon
While feathers beat a banshee tune
And glimmers dance and prance aglow
Upon a pearly pale plateau;
Of tasting cool torrential rains,
Beyond the realm of binding chains,
And sipping freedom they exude
In quite drops of solitude;
Of whisking off a galley crew
Aboard a ship in midnight dew,
Beneath the pierce of seagull's screams
That mock the strands of scarlet streams;
Of sating once an aching craw
With tearing beak, with ripping claw
And echoed by an eldritch screech
While feasting on abandoned beach;
Of restive thoughts and weary wings
That drift on haze and smoky rings
Obscured within the opal shroud
Of her resemblance in the crowd;
Of croaking caws in broken rhyme
Of winter woe, of summer clime,
Of building nests of sundown sage
Beyond outside a barren cage.