Thursday, July 06, 2023

EVEN WHEN IT DREAMS, EVEN THOUGH WHEN IT DREAMS

 


I don't want to be angry at anyone

but reports of the band NOT playing

Nearer My God to Thee as the Titanic

slowly, nightmarishly rose in a vertical way

as if praying before with agonizing drop by drop heart

shattering

slowness it dipped under with cries resounding makes me wonder

thunderstruck

why are so many so eager to disprove this, triumphant ants

scurrying over the fatal picnic swells feasting on

secular crumbs. that a hymn was strummed.

maybe it was true, maybe it was not.

that the band played waltzes and nothing of hymns.

you still don't know what the angels sang to them

the musicians going down implacably devoted

to music and consolation

even to their own devastation

the doomed passengers

flailing in the icy waters were known to be praying out loud

hearing music who can say from what realms.

for there are many realms where facts do not hold sway.

fact check it all away.

the moon, the stars, the glacial waters.

any evidence of port.

undying love. the truth of the dividing line

between the living and the dead. and the almost dead

and latitudes of the Unseen crowning

nearing with certainty the precipice of it all.

how flimsy are facts in the waters of calamity

strip every tree bare and consign

it to shift its leaves ecologically

to your visionless demands, cold calculations

pursed lipped lines in the sands

where the tombs of the Pharaohs prevail.

sneering at Time.

even though when it dreams

its roots have turned to gold.

and a ghost ship somewhere - chimes.

mary angela douglas 6 july 2023

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