We heard the whispering song,
Together with the beating gong.
Its sound echoed through the reed
The reed of an opening woodwind.
In the greyness of isolated time
The echo bursted inside of us
Like a great harmonic chord-
Of a stringed percussion instrument.
Encapsulated in the rhythm of the song
We danced and gyrated to the beat
The deadbeat that lured us away
Into the fortress of deceitful gods.
In the fearful visage of the night
The wraiths appeared with the gods
To exchange our graceful smiles
With wrinkles of stinging pains.
Tears trickled down our tanned faces
As they mauled our naked bodies
In a house called the porter’s hearth
A porter’s hearth of slaughtered dreams.
Strange whispers kept us awake
With evil enveloping our cradles
And the fear of terrified shadows
Pelt our hearts with squinting knives.
Like thralls, we buried our dreams
In insidious servitude to the gods
Who deleteriously enchanted us
To steal our blossoming hopes.
