Dark Thanatos
Dr Linda L Bielowski
Waiting for Dark
Opaque, ebony, rayless, cinder, sable-lacquered
Sealed eyes shut, coffin lid closed
dark
Wishes dangling from wormwood stars
Turning a mental mobile in
A slipstream of flashbacks, perforated negatives,
Portraits of past lives, lives passed in
Peeling faces of living lost
Hovering overhead my Procrustean bed of
Ill-fit, ill-fate, feeling flat with the
Flatness of the earth before it
Became round and ripe from the apple
Bitten of knowledge plucked
From the tree of heaven
Leaving me separate in this Land of Nod
Limbs frozen as deadly nightshade sitting
On the windowsill of my waiting and wishing
For dark
2.
Listening for the night creature of
Bone-chilling gloom with
Heart of pitiless iron wrenching
Until the world of light perishes
Beneath thunderous hooves of
Thanatos, my redeemer, riding his
Pale horse in apocalyptic calypso
Across Orion, moving on
To trample mustard moon and saffron sun
With the Grim Reaper’s scythe
Slashing the last of my lifelines
While Cerberus bellows at the
Entrance to Hades, the doorway to death
Restless, eternal, and waiting
With my sarcophagus decorated by
Nephilim who caress unstrung harps
While waving to Helios who never
Casts his light on death wishes
3.
Falling into me
I know the quiet that
Deafens with its soliloquy of
Solace and solitude as
Thanatos, the trickster, laughs the
Sound of many waters for
He knows death comes from
Wading in his
Dark and drowning sea