Bethlem

“Bethlem”

I still close my eyes to see
What shall never part from me.
I see the dreams the shadows seek.
Amid the lights, I hear them speak
Sleepless through the crying air:
Sins of memories none can share.

Separate the flesh of the sky
From wings that once could fly—
Suffocate in the arms of a song
Where voices do not belong—
In flowers entombed in desert waste—
Their sickness a sweetness few now can taste.

No breath of thine can save me
From the spirit of debris.
On the threshold of a prayer,
Summer in the fetid air,
What world threatens to come here
As stars and twilight disappear?

Is there such a lovely thing
As a thought without suffering?
I escape into the nothingness
To be less than my own emptiness.
Another day slowly will creep
Toward the peace of sleep.

© 2021 Marten Hoyle