The maids of Damascus are dancing on razor
blades,
three singing sirens, sirrocos that bleed
there’s no cause to hope we’ll escape from
the fires
of passions that burn through their hours of
need.
They’ll never stopped spinning, there’s nothing
to stop them,
the promise of spinning is all that they hear
if ever they pause it will be for fulfillment
of horrible prophesies whispered in fear.
Tonight I’m their witness, their only companion.
if darkness should claim me, alone they shall
gyre
I can not forsake them, I’ll never forgive,
the truths that they’ve shown me have made
me a liar.
Your instrument’s wanting, my ill-strung heart
fails me
when singing to moonlight to rally her home,
the dark trees of evening have swallowed her
magic
and nothing is left me but sorrows and bone.
The old man in the cave laughed to see me so
present,
the old man of death in darkness alone.
He’s left me contentment, for now, not forever,
in time we’ll be dining on sand, dust, and
stone.
I’ve always watched rivers flow, mimicked their
motion,
restlessly happy to shorten the long
endless rising and falling of tides so enchanting
new games for their playing remembering song.
Now metal on metal, the groaning of steel comes.
Something approaches to mangle and kill.
I’m hoping it’s merely the night garbage milk
man
coming to leave us a new space to fill.
But what of the dancers?
Where has the moon gone?
Vespers are over, the river’s stopped still
flown into oceans the singing has silenced
the
dream lingers lonely
lost words without will.
The
Maids of Damascus