AS THE EVENING PORTENDS TOWARD ITS MORE OCCULT PROPHETIC ENDS

AS THE EVENING PORTENDS TOWARD ITS MORE OCCULT PROPHETIC ENDS

As the evening portends toward its more occult prophetic ends

of candles and incense and blue glass skulls on the windowsills

of perception the marshmellow emotions of the day as the darkness

that is here to stay overwhelms them into writing little thing

razorblades of suicidally incisive poetry unquestionably influenced

by the exhaustive torment of light and shadow going on in my body.

The piebald clown takes on a serious tenor

and forgets to laugh at himself in the mirror

when he sees the six crows feet streaming

like bicycle handlebar comets from his eyes

six weeks ago have frayed into the thirty-three tributaries

of the split end strong rope rootfires of the Nile delta shrieking mandrake.

I’m emptying into the Mediterranean sea. I’m an old sphinx

with rainmarks from when the desert was green.

I’ve aged five years around my eyes in the last thirty-three days.

Dorian Grey is crackling. The varnish is yellow

as amber eras of age. Time take your foot off the gas.

I’m going to pass. Dark energy cover your eyes and face and move over

I’m expanding too fast for the stars to keep up with the pace.

Maybe if I go far enough into the abyss with this

I’ll start moving backward in time and the next time I look

I’ll be a boy again begging salmon from the fishermen

that came in to port at sunset to unload and oil their boats

at Johnson Street Harbour with the ballast block cast iron bridge

that swung like the pendulum of Thor’s hammer

to keep time with the pulse of our comings and goings

as they stacked my forklift arms up like cubic cord wood time capsules

to take home to my mother to make her proud of me,

and say, hey, kid, tell us when enough is enough is enough.

PATRICK WHITE