A Song For Douglas After He's Dead

He crouches on the floor

There's a mask on the wall

And he leafs through the pages of a book

But wait as he may in the shadow of other leaves

His heart in embraces to times long since scorched

The horizon folds over with a purple sunrise

And the wind carries smoke from a world that is burning

The smoke locks in his hair and he's covered with patterns

And the descent of his life, trees on his camouflaged soul

With a winter of memories carved powder-bone white

Beyond his skull's form a scorpion lies

In the crunch of the snow as his darkness increases

A twilight of ice encircles his teeth

There's a swastika carved

In the palm of his hand

There's a crooked cross

That is caught in his mind

There waits a falling sun in his eyes

There's the honor of violence on his lips

His father waits for him near the Towers of Silence

Where they worship the fires so long quenched

Under two willow trees with elhaz inverted

The force of life snapped

There father and son

Shall mingle in dust

As if life itself

Has been mostly illusion but partially real

And partially pain

And over some wall

If you look through the rubble

Amongst ruins of churches where life conquers death

Though empires cannot last

Where blood and soil's concepts

Have faltered and failed

A cloud still sows teeth

As the world disappears

This is a song for Douglas

After he's dead

This is a song for my Douglas

His Mercury dances