A psychological interruption
of the age; an unquenched devotion to
return to a time without division,
when child and toy unified in a blue
soft remembrance beneath a vision
of angelic cloud. What is left to do
but wear the mantle of a child at war
with an infidel world in Thermidor?
Forgive what I have been; change what I am;
direct what I shall be. Let the child speak
through me as a voice from an epigram.
I lie in a dark, lost garden, and seek
to dream of a holy land, where the gods damn
patristic power and restore the meek
to a throne of gold. There the child shall reign,
oblivious to consciousness and pain.
Embark upon this sojourn if you will,
and raise the oriflamme above the press
of battle blood, but one can never kill
the creeping clouds that shadow and regress
the garden back to present time. Until
the night descends, and blankets consciousness,
yoking object to its subject, the dream must die,
and the voice of youth lose its battle cry.
Child of man, caught between the self and world,
the holy land is burning, and children
turned to slaves. The standard of war is furled
and all former foes reborn as brethren.
Peace is made with the present netherworld
over the death of a dream in heaven.
This world is not your world; for yours is breath
of endless night, unconsciousness of death.