amethyst vapors twist among the haze
like the flaming burst when sunlight splays,
its fiery limbs across the horizon,
threaded with starlight, slender and
flaxen,
amid the smoky mumur, the tiger-lily calls,
its voice an iced, lulling nightfall,
"do you not hear the drum?
Bum bum. Bum bum.
it is always two-toned and never more,
a throbbing tide against the slow spread of shore,
do you not hear the drum?
Bum bum. Bum bum.
it booms beyond the sparking swarm,
like a blood-wrapped rainstorm,
aches above the blazing trail,
like a dead man's final wail,
there it stands, before your eyes,
transparent as the illusory moonrise,
there it stands, consumed in fire,
standing atop the funeral pyre,
but do you not hear the drum?
Bum bum. Bum bum.
is the sight not absurd?
a drunkard's musings, all swirling and slurred,
moonstruck loons emerging from catacombs,
forever speaking in palindromes,
rueful words lash the mind like a lightning crack,
the anguish of Orpheus looking back,
you may pray for this to end,
the inbred wound which cannot mend,
but can the heart's beat die in the gullet of fire,
in the golden flame of the funeral pyre?"