TEARS IN FIELDS OF LONGING

We gathered in bright fields

dressed in garbs of blood red

like crimson penitents waiting absolution

We held our drinks and took our vices

in a cacophony of rank indulgence

among vehicles of disjointed stoppings

scattered in from long distances

and never to be driven again

Such as we were

Such as we always were

The blue stuffed bears waddled in

from the blue sparkling wood

bestuffed with wadded joy

and sat grinning in a circle

like mad beasts in a secret rite

They unstuffed themselves in a relish

unmaking the seams of their joining

with string and scissor

their pilings amassing at the center

in primeval offering and

glimmering such as the forest they departed

Their blue heads hung in the air

above the crumples of their being

pooled in sloven cloth

and looked skyward

frozen

The blind cats of the dawn

mewed in their wanderings

and haunted the shades of the day

in ever curling circles till

all shadows squirmed with their beings

Black knights in black armor

trot on pale horses to hoove the ground

in fixed circuits understood by only themselves

and crying the air with shouts of yay and yay!

They slaughtered each other in unyielding mercy

their armor falling decalescent to the earth

in glory and justice and the gleaming of sword

Riven of their beings

their skeletal frames stood bloody in the stirrups

their yawing jaws moaning profanities

and dismounted

Their bones collapsed in heaps of jagged wet sticks

as the horses stamped hot

snuffling steam into the cold air

and bolted to the cliff

descending off in ranks like angels

And the cats did mew

and the bears stared silent

and the Man of Sorrow sat plaintive

upon the barren cliff

He in his white robes held a guitar

and crooned a lament

into the shining oblivion of the day

Black tears rivered his face

drawing down over his clothes

and over the cliff and the land beyond

Sorrow upon sorrow

and sadness without end

the rivulets of grief pooled

and stained the land beneath our feet

And we wept

A cloud of starlings murmured in waves

and white as glass

shimmered above in an ocean of undulating

gentle

peace

Our robes fell in nakedness

our stomachs now hungry

and we retreated to our suppers

in the quiet of the undying sun