Prayer to Azrael

In the shadow voice
I speak your name,
Azrael..
through the darkness of the humid night,
it resonates
in cathedral carillions,
tolling, like some great, deep bell
heard for miles afar,
lulled on the swell of the wind,
this symphony,
mighty in sorrow
carried on huge, dark and silent wings,
obliterating all light,
extinguishing every flame
that strives to survive your immense unfurling.

Your name, an attribute, a mortal gift,
a blessing passed through many lips
and given meaning in their prayers.
A word
becomes an invocation
simply by the emotion
imbued in its speaking.
Azrael....
The sirens sing your name
in ways that bring the angels
and the demons to their knees.
They cannot help that they have fallen.
Your name stills the heart,
silences their breath,
culls the flame of longing from their loins.
Azrael.....
the name is Love
and ever fleeting in that kiss,
that eternity could be so quick,
so demonstrative in but a moment
where time does not exist
and forever
becomes the blink of an eye,
yet so much longer
than these days.
We speak your name,
and like them, fall,
weak-kneed into your cold, cold arms
just waiting for that kiss,
however fleeting it may seem,
it is longer than our days
and fuller than our nights
and so much stronger than our dreams profess,
and so much sweeter when Life is willing
to surrender to this song




When He Comes

He comes not like a thief in the night,
nor descends on flailing bladed wings.
No malice has He toward the fearing soul.
No anger spits from His still, cold lips.
He comes as the gentle whisper of winter wind,
or the quick ecstasy of the lightning bolt
immediate yet lingering as if embraced
by a darkling shadow or a twilight shade.
He is not the wielder of the killing blade.

The River of Death teems not with blood,
nor the tears of selfish grief.
No lost souls are there adrift upon the current,
only lich-lights remain to mark each journey,
silent ripples on the deep, dark waters
that gently kiss indivisible shores.

He is not the barrenness of bones,
nor the stagnance of a winter pool.
He is the fullness of an autumn bouquet
and that which runs rife in the misty bog.
He is the free acceptance of primordial change
where no conditions stem the cycle,
where no tears float like heavy oils
on the surface of such crystal waters.

He is the twilight forever bounded
by the two extremes of day and night.
He is the moment wherein all things do change-
The stoppage of time and elimination of space
between all that was and all that is,
and all that shall be, is a stationary point
that contains all times at once
and all space on a narrow bridge,
where everything culminates in a "winking out"-
A moment of darkness
wherein all reality is contained
and all illusion cast aside.

Death is the dream come to flesh
only to shed the veil of sleep
and reveal the naked form of Truth
reclining peaceably and shaded by Life's afterglow-

When He comes, all of man's truths shall shatter.
And the thin icy skin afloat on His waters
shall crack from the weight of a single soul.





In My Fallen Hours

In my fallen hours,
I paint the ultimate abyss-
A place of dreams and shadows
where hearts tumble like dead wood into the ravine.
The ravine is a cool and pleasing place
because it is solitary, devoid of humanity,
expatriot of Faith.
It is a place of creation...
via destruction.
A no-man's land,
where man is unfit to travel
because he cannot traverse the lanes
too narrow for passage,
too lofty for flight on such wings of atrophy.
The abyss swallows the little man,
ill prepared for the journey,
too light for the winds...
too heavy to be aloft within them.
Mankind is burdened by their bulk...
but, better mankind is burdened
by their illusion of matter.
The concept of earth weighs them down;
tethers them to dark direction...
the narrow path, the gilded road,
is all illusion in the end.
For, in the end is the sweetness of sweet surrender...
to the knowing that all has passed,
and form has devolved into pure thought,
and thought has succumb to pure logic,
and logic has fallen victim to love...
and love survives amidst the brambles of Life and
Death.
And Love becomes the ultimate killer,
and Death becomes the ultimate lover...
And what better lover is there
than one whom you are consumed by totally
and who consumes you?




And Nothing of Time

And when He touched me, my heart became a
shadow,
My life, an overcasting of my soul.
An elongated image of a very small design
that the twilight somehow lengthened
into imaginary strides.

But, when He touched me, and I regained
perspective,
my life was so much smaller than it seemed,
so much less imposing than the shadow it had cast-
So much more a part of memory.

Then He touched me, and I forgot all I once was,
for all I am, where the view from the bridge
has no perspective other than the immediate moment
in which is contained all of eternity
and nothing of time.