Annual Commemoration Of The Divine Passion Poem by William Cook

You eclipse me & I have stained the Sun with black love...
death from a bottle cools my ardour
for a while, until I see you again.

The damp distance is bleached
then blackened with shadows
& flocks of shrill birds, screaming for blood

Bound hands grow swollen
body – silently numbed
a bed on fire I laid upon
now reddened with burning life

In these blistered hours of insomnia
objects are like lead
I believe they are other things & less than they are
as if fewer of them would create
a stillness like sleep
— if only to dream of her again

The cushions beckon in the mirror
white & summoning, judicious
the bed reflected in that fantasy land,
that round pool of hope

Why stir dust on a sacred tomb
as I lay down with a prayer for darkness
a snowflake melts on her virgin eyelids
somewhere & now, together again
we drink every breath of poisoned air
she asleep, I awake...

Not believing in resurrection —
I stroll through cemeteries
looking for her name, not wanting to see it
the damp brown earth reminds me
every hour we breathe is our last;
victims don’t want blind skies
their toil & consistency as mortals
are truer religions than faith itself,
so welcome me as one of them — into your house.

The last star’s neon spark
will be dissolved painlessly.
Morning will knock on the window, still —
like a grey wet wind
slow day will begin to stir.
Livestock shiver in the cold dawn,
some kind of slaughterhouse morn
the blood drained dreams
dissipate, replaced by
perpetual sameness...

Awakened from a long dark dream,
I thought I saw her somewhere in there
the awesome force of sleep’s return
shut me down like wild song
like black amphibious wine
a hollow ghost —
peering senselessly through the cold
window of every lost night

This morning once again
on motionless ground,
& along with it
drinking cold mountain air outside;
refined air, once, our air...

Across the crisp cool valley — white snow
blue mountains of decrepit glass & dream
dissolve, in this fresh green brocade

Hope sparkles in the diamond dew
that mirrors the sun
for a minute
while across the way, beyond this place
despair draws its dark curtain of cloud
over the broken road;
another day annexed,
closer to you again, I come.