The Doom of the Ring
Am I supposed to dream to die
before I learn the lovely lure
of the broken woman in sobs wet spoken
under the table in lingerie?
Nearby the water is a crime on the shore
(that is the shore of my mankind)
where I am doomed to brood until,
quartering a sacrifice to the evening,
I make a butcher’s look of the sky.
Is there a blooming moon on the sill?
Is there the mask of a child killed?
Sunlight like an amiable traveller
meets the bones of my homeless crib;
A God to give the doom of the ring,
the ring that holds the loose woman in,
that breaks the liquid wall of the sea,
transforming a sob to a robbed till.
Am I the butchering finger’s boy,
singing alone in a shack by the river?
O hear the water of the world go by,
singing with the broken mask in the mirror.