Curled fetal, like cats feral in the rain,
Tears-tired, choking them back, we cursed through dreams
Till on the River Lethe we turned our pain
And towards the east: There! Distant light- It seems
We march asleep. Many may—must—crawl,
Else limp on, love-shod. All are lame; all blind;
Drunk with descent; deaf at least to the Call
Of tired, out-stripped Reason, far, far, behind.

Tear! Tear! Quick, heart!- An ecstasy of fumbling
To cease the cognate blood-beat just in time;
But she was still, cry, crying out, and stumbling;
And flound’ring like a poet stuck in rime…
Dim, through the salinous and sick green thought,
As under a green sea, I saw the crowning.
In all my dreams, despite my helpless ought,
Tis she, slow motion sputtering: choking: drowning.

Stuck in such stifling dreams you too would wring
Apart this organ, perjured yet again,
To hear the writhing joy begin to sing—
My lovely, sing!—as you peel your throat with pain.
Then you would hear, at every tick, the Breath
Come bubbling through the sorrow-stricken lungs,
Rancid as vomit; bitter, as the Death
Becomes, incurable, the Cure. Simple tongues,
My friend, ardent for a true Halleluiah,
Would tell you She is Wonder—Fool! She takes none
Prisoner: Amor Vincit Omnia
And slays us one by one.