Death In The Sanctuary

(a poem written after Love In The Asylum by Dylan Thomas)

A messenger has come

To speak to me in my dreams across the table of cups,

An angel wild as the sea 

Covering the empyrean of the window with his shoulder his wing

Fallen to the bed of feathers

He tricks the harbor of the ruined with the gathered storm

Yet he tricks with storytelling the nightmare halls,

Roaming like the fallen,

Or sails his ship through the yielding brine

He has come bewitched

Who invites the enchanted fire through the falling tower,

Bewitched by the heavens

He lingers in familiar walks where the dust of bone rises

Abjuring his desires

On the concrete of the patio worn smooth by suffering

And encircled in his folding shadow at the long and dear ending

I may without exception

Endure the last vision that burns the sun to rest.