. . . The Ragged Curtain Falls
I did not write captions for these photos. It's up to you to decide if they express the artist's view of death or life after death.
It's here. And gone.
Cheyenne dusk slices me in bloodless night. Skull soldiers of sunrise gives life to rotted eyes.
And reptiles innocent and maimed crawl righteously free in a tattered shadow of what's left of me
Starving and carving a lonely mark seen only by foolish light and senseless dark.
Moments as quicksilver--fading sparks travel fast and far inspecting what was once my face
but is now a Sheol's mar.
Dark, desolate, soothing the vulgar odor of a corpse-like quiet
Gives needed-pink passion to the ravenous, screaming, needy-night.
No words. No life. No night. Without sought-after solution or eager-absolution
Cautiously reaching the roots, cold dirt walls, fading halls seeking the sum of life in all.
Unknown location.
Dark, desolate, soothing the vulgar odor of a corpse-like quiet
Gives needed-pink passion to the ravenous, screaming, needy-night.
No words. No life. No night. Without sought-after solution or eager-absolution
Cautiously reaching the roots, cold dirt walls, fading halls seeking the sum of life in all.
Speaking is useless as as wings to a dark disease that consumes humanity, and man's sweet ease.
Teasing an unassuming sky while dancing with death in my other closed eye,
I hide a smirk, a glimmer of her, and walk boldy to the graveside's rusty good-bye.
My bones for feet are slipping in sod of filth--embracing the sentence, spitting on the pentence.
New visions. New birth.
So dragons of green, ravens serene knowing a flesh soon will gag the starving pale of Styx.
She stands mute glaring the scabbed satin wound while foggy devils hold hands with hades.
Cursed be my tongue--no vowels, sighs, and obscure cries of love touched and lost.
Just my stench, my sweaty stench.
Horsemen with hearts so pure groping a crack in my soul in which to peer.
Knights, pawns, bishops just cowards in mask
Grimacing the thorns of an eternal task.
Stand so sure. Shaking their valor down. Ahhh, real bones. Real hearts. Real men.
At Last, It's Final.
Innocent hares run past harmless snares . . .
And serpents coil a nurtured stance.
At "a" sunrise a glimpse away--I stare. . .
And simply stare.
Reminder . . .
as I said in the summary, you may read this piece from top to bottom then from bottom to top and arrive at a completely-different meaning each time. That is the main reason this took me so long to complete.
Thank you,
Kenneth
Van Dyck's Saint Rosalie interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo, 1624 (detail) is on display at Van Dyck in Sicily: Painting and the Plague at Dulwich Picture Gallery. Photograph: The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence.
