It’s like fishing in the dark,
If you ask me:
Our thoughts are the hooks,
Our hearts the raw bait.
We cast the line over our heads,
Past all faith, past all believing,
Into the starless midnight sky,
Until it’s lost to sight.
The line’s long unravelling
Rising in our throats like a sigh
Of a long-day’s weariness,
Soul-searching and revery.
One thought against the Supreme
Unthinkable.
How about that?
Loony-tunes, fishing in the dark
Out of an empty sleeve
With a mourning band on it.
The fly and the spider on the ceiling
Looking on, brother.
In the highest school of hide-and-seek,
In its vast classroom
Of smoke and mirrors,
Where we are the twin dunces
Left standing in
The darkest corner.
Our fates in the silence of a mouth
Of the one
“Who hath no image,”
Glistening there
As if moistened by his tongue.
It takes a tiny nibble
From time to time.
Don’t you believe it.
It sends a shiver down our spines
In response.
Like hell, it does.
There’s a door you’ve never noticed before
Left ajar in your room.
Don’t kid yourself.
The song said: “Do nothing
Till you hear from me.”
Yes, of course.
In the meantime,
Wear mirror-tinted
Glasses to bed,
Say in your prayers:
“In that thou hast sought me,
Thou hast already found me.”
That’s what the leaves are
All upset about tonight.
Solitary fishermen lining up
Like zeros—
To Infinity.
Each in his shade
Chewing on the bitter verb
“To be.”
The ripple of the abyss
Closing in on them.
Therein the mystery
And the pity.
The hook left dangling
In the Great “Nothing,”
Surely snipped off
By XXXXXX’s own
Moustache-trimming scissors …
Nevertheless, aloft,
White shirt-tails and all—
I’ll be damned!