Looking Glass

I left my home far behind, waved good-bye to my routine

One dusky hour's drive north

I rode in man's machine

Someplace in north's wood

I felt that I would find

"There lies your reputation

and an honest measure of your worth"

This I have sought in quest

since my long gone birth

Battling with my beasties

has brought me to a truth

The sweeter the tongue,

The sharper the tooth

I stepped forth on the Mother

In my search for light

Forgotten church to my left,

The mansion to my right

Light showed through the windows

Of the house that I have known

So I had made this my guest,

The scars of dusk had blown

There's a man who carries his dreams

In a bag slung over his shoulder

No word could you understand,

His bundleis as life's boulders

So he bags his regrets

Into a bundle of sorrow

And carries them in hope,

The hope of tomorrow

I left my bag out of sight

And sat by candle-light

Then I saw an apparition,

Much to my own fright

I saw a compound

Of all that is unclean

Abnormal, detestable,

The worst that I have seen

The ghoulish shade of decay,

Putrid and antique

Unwholesome revelation,

All that is bleak

A travesty of human shape

Upon bones of mold

Clothing disintegrating,

The stench of the old

I know what I am,

I am what I am

I stared into the glassy orbs

Which stared back at me

Then I had found my peace,

I had found the key

I reached to touch the carrion

And it reached from the mass

To reveal to my fingers

Cold polished glass!

We tipped our hats

Good-Eve to the other

Picked up our bags,

Waved good-bye to our brother

We'll find the speck

Of truth in each riddle

And a looking-glass

Stuck in the middle

Wise one is master of the mind,

Fool will be it's slave

Me, I'm in the middle,

Only a mirror, only a riddle

Imagine the dark obscure poet

Gliding through his night

Pausing to stare in from the out.

He would enter, but outside he is lord

Imagine the pure beyond holy and evil,

Watching, trying every extreme

With the calm knowledge

That he is colour and dance and saying,

"There is no Renaissance,

Only the ancients creating different lights"