Shadows and Dust

by Rajeev Anil Roark

Buried beneath the achromatic hopes of a denied heart,

Tucked away safely within the xanthous love of a sleet filled mind,

Lies a drab kind of reality that I seek through its sobs,

And I was sent here to find it by the shaman by the sierra road

 

I have searched, inquired, quested and requested,

From the darkest truths in the lilting voice of the godmen and women,

To the cheerful lies of the painted masks and wrinkled lives,

I have search it within the lips of goddess, within the thighs of a whore

 

I was told of it once by this fool of a reality, of freedom and of love,

And I laughed and cackled and chuckled in derision and I still do,

As I now find him by that old rustic cafe on the street where they sell books and love,

And I show him those peasants of misery and nobles of love crying together,

 

I flaunt to him the scratch marks in fours on the walls in and out,

In the cage that I built loving and carefully and slowly with barricades 

I told him of guests bringing firewood for me thinking it is for warmth,

And when they left, I laughed in the metronome of the nails I hammered in each exit

 

He talks to me of this gaudy whore that will come one day, all words and sighs,

Who will break my cage and who will turn me naked and will scar my back in love,

But he forgets I will be long gone by then, I’d have safely decayed and crumbled down,

And all she will do is leave some erasable footprints while I’ll be home in shadows and dust…