A Song for Douglas After He’s Dead

He crouches on the floor
There's a mask on the wall
And he leafs through the pages of a book
But wait as he may in the shadow of other leaves
His heart in embraces to times long since scorched

The horizon folds over with a purple sunrise
And the wind carries smoke from a world that is burning
The smoke locks in his hair and he's covered with patterns
And the descent of life-trees on his camouflaged soul
With a winter of memories carved powder-bone white
Beyond his skull's form a scorpion lies
In the crunch of the snow as his darkness increases
A twilight of ice encircles his teeth

This is a song for Douglas
After he's dead
This is a song for Douglas
His Mercury dances

There's a swastika carved
In the palm of his hand
There's a crooked cross
That is caught in his mind
There waits a failing sun in his eyes
There's the honor of violence oh his lips

His father waits for him near the Towers of Silence
Where they worship the fires so long ago quenched
Under two willow trees with Elhaz inverted
The fork of life snapped—
There father and son
Shall mingle in dust
As if life itself
Had been mostly illusion but partially real
And partially pain

And over some wall
If you look through the rubble
Amongst ruins of churches
Where life conquers death
Though empires can not last
Where blood and soil's concepts
Have faltered and failed
A cloud still sows teeth
As the world disappears…

This is a song for Douglas
After he's dead
This is a song for my Douglas
His Mercury dances