Poem of the week

SONG TO NOTHING by Ira Cohen

And surely we will die without memory
coming to cold in the shadow of space
& if it isn’t too late
for the star to love you
spraying the sky w/ whispers
attuned to galaxies hungry for flame
And if the tongue of night sings
of Albino winos
till the morning light shafts
                   the doorway
then surely we will die tonight
                  faceless at the White
                                     Gate
sharing the smoke
w/ ancient shapes in future garb
and you stand somewhere there
                    on the other side
feeding on the pain of dreamlessness
Wherefrom the misty morning of
                        white shadows
& the unresisting need to destroy?

Samael, Samael, I beg it may be forgiven
          that they may be driven
          out of the black into the white
Only let the dazzle remain
          for gamblers to surprise,
  the strategic diamond, the throne
                           of compressed bone
           in the unshored dark
where only light can forgive
              & your mind is singed
Embers of echoes in the vastness
        disguise the yearning to burn
                            blind eyes
in arrogant displays of feeling—
Running wild these beasts will feast
                         on the newborn kind
for surely we will die tonight
unless we learn to ignore
what the others live for
on the other side of morning
& the Skin of Nothing left by the same
                                           summer
masks the faceless wanderer

          O let it happen,
          this weird to discover
          the shape of Beauty in everything
                                                 extreme
for surely we will die tonight
whether we will or whether we
                              dream
O Samael, forgive the dreamer
                 forgive the dream

The Song of Nothing is your lullabye.