Graveyard of the Gods

The bars of the cemetery gates were

Majestic, thin, archaic and crooked

Like the half outstretched fingers of

Death himself.  Though they pointed upwards

Towards the glassy orb in the sky,

I went in.  Like rotten teeth, the gravestones

Protruded from their place at unequal

Distances each to each; some were long,

Some short, askew or straight, and all chipped at

The edges showing age. Only the worship-less

Moon gave them a white that was not there. 

And though the whole decrepit mouth stank

As the vapours of the earth enwrapped the

Chalky slabs, I, like one whose intuitive

Manners precedes action, didn’t flinch. 

I was in the graveyard of all the gods

And my plan was clear. With spade in hand

I pierced some soil to resurrect those

Oft forgotten bones that lay resting

Under some weighty years of progressive

Dirt, grave layers set in loose lumps of

Man’s knowledge tramped down at a time.

But some days they are surely worthy of

Resurrection.  The first I dug was new.

He still held flesh to bone that laboured time

Had not undone and a white beard still shone

Like wispy clouds or ripped cotton clinging

To fossiled flesh (the archetypal beard,

I thought!).  I propped him upon a slab and,

With makeshift lines, drew upon the dirt some

Crude square forms for chess.  The rocks and

Stones we placed as kings and queens, castles and

Horses.  “The pawns are essential,” I said

With a nervous laugh but the sockets where

Once was housed omniscient eyes were now just

The collapsed space of infinite black; holes

Where, If looked intently, shown an image of

Myself in a pall of deathly moonlight white.

We played our game and sometimes stopped to laugh

At the wily ways of men (and women)

And all the myriad ways that chance can

Hope upon a move. And when I came to

Realize I made his moves and mine did

I feel the heavy haze of the moon’s stare

In a heatless glare that seared shame.

The second was of a different kind.  The

Hips were in a convex curve shone wide

That spoke to the feminine feature in

Her skeletal remains; crescent hips like

The moons childhood before the steady

Motion of times waves made it full.  But they

Arched like the bended bow that launches all

The arrows that can be blamed on love.  I took

Her in embrace and wrapped an arm around

A wide waist as we danced among the stars.

Her ecru arm I crossed over my own

Boned shoulder where, from a lifeless wrist,

Waved a jostling hand full of mock life that did

Sway to and fro with each merry step like

The puppet sans the strings.  Under the night

Sky I swept her round and round through swirls

Of dirt as we sometimes threw a head above

To glimpse the swirls of the moons aspect in

Unearthly spirals like ghosts on the wing.

We danced and danced until her celestial

Bones collapsed upon my own, a crumple

Of life not really there.   The love I held

 I realized then was contained in my own

Bones that emanated spirit and the movement

Of us both.  Then did I see I was the

One who caused that hand to swing and sway with

The dance while the heavy haze of the moon’s

Stare in a heatless glare seared shame. The third

And last I rose from the ground.  I propped his

Starved skull skyward so we might in concert

Contemplate the stars.  We peered at the spray

Of sprinkled lights that blinked in reverence

Around the mother moon that shined like a

Progenitor never out of sight.  I

Grasped a pensive moment to explain how some

Lights in the sky had nearly died when he

Was but an infant when he had an infant’s mind

And an infant’s eye to tell what he might see.

I said, as if a student who dared show

What he knew, such light has leapt across the

Bounds of time to spy upon us now, you

And I, as if to come back from the dead

And see us wonder why.  He only stared.

The slithering snake, like sins surprise, came

Round the cavernous reach of his eye, peered

A hastate head, and hissed.  I left those bones

To be found.  Let another decide if

They are fit to hide again.  Toward the

Gate I made my way and in a flourished

Flight.  If old bones have their use then I will

Shave mine own down to a point to write

A name.  The bars of the cemetery

Gates pointed up to infinite abyss.

There the hallowed moon patiently sits

Where she does not blink nor does she see.