Monologue Of Dusk Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

I am the colored cock that chants and dances
I be the rain that clouds will not conceive
I be the soil down-trodden yet earth-moving
I be the raincoat of the sudden lightning
I be the doors that creak in haunted houses
I be the bridge that groans in the still night
I be the waters of the Port still dancing
I be the earth that rises as the dolphins
I be the waters that roll by the kerb in tempest
I be the Soul that wants to grow and feels restricted
I am the heart that wants to burst yet hardens
I the dusk the Alpha and Omega and yet pointing
towards the end of woeful day



Let me speak: I am in monologue;
let me my heart open: its chambers
are open
let my brain open: its chambers too
be open

When
I
speak
I
have
power
to
roar
as
thunder
roars
yet
you
see
with
me
I
bring
stillness
itself


You be supreme, sir, in your caution
Kind! Kind! the table be laid
the bastion swarthy:
the flames and torches burn
below the drawbridge
heighten
it be soon night
see! a first star on the horizon
of immense heavens.


The Night thought me
with kind and flowered words
to be explanatory:
for see the humans be
keen and awaiting
the Humans need the Dawn
yet did you ever spot
the beaches of the lines
of the long coasts
lined with humans waiting?
Humans be in the realms
or Morpheus
Or just beginning about
their business?

I am the start of a civilization
That many called decadent
I say no:
I like absinthe and my
Eyes sparkle at it
As gulp after gulp I sip it.

I lay siege to the bastions
But at night only
I am the Soul of palms
And trees and branches
That in the gardens wave
In the night odors and in
The night winds


I be Modigliani
I love him
But then in me there be a bit of Titian
There be in me a bit of Rembrandt
There be in me the dark of Caravaggio
And Goya:
Ay! In me there is Cellini’s sculpture
I cover the Medusa in my redness
I have the cry of Michelangelo
When he stroke David saying
‘Speak’
I have the gentle Raphael’s brilliance
There be so much in me
There be so many
And there will be
Civilization only will list all them.

There be in me mixture on
Mixture
There be in me Beauty and
Horror
There be in me mystery and
Knowledge
I open doors
And then I close them.



I am the cobra of the wise
contortion
I speak and am I silent
No words fall
no, not syllables even
from my mouth
yet
partially
beauty blinds me.

I am the wisdom of Semiramis
I have curiosity as Paracelsus
I feast on my own daintiness as Narcissus
I accept challenge as Hercules
I am a robber to distribute as Robin Hood
I am the stealer of the heaven's jewels
then I carry them to humans as Prometheus


I am
I am
I am fount of beauty
I am
a fount of wisdom
yet
in me you will suck
damp sadness.


I am the Chorus of decline
I am the Mourner at
The end of Day
I mourn each Day
Now that’s second habit:
To me
By memory I do it:
Yet in my heart I feel
The pangs for the day’s going.

I am a Ray
I am Despair
And simultaneously
The Hope
I am a rock
As the One that Moses
Touched with the iron rod
And waters gushed forth.




I am the edge
I be the horizon
I be the waning
yet
also beginning
close of reign
genesis of another
next to next
athletic racer who will
pass the baton.

I am the colored cock that chants and dances
I be the rain that clouds will not conceive
I be the soil down-trodden yet earth-moving
I be the raincoat of the sudden lightning
I be the doors that creak in haunted houses
I be the bridge that groans in the still night
I be the waters of the Port still dancing
I be the earth that rises as the dolphins
I be the waters that roll by the kerb in tempest
I be the Soul that wants to grow and feels restricted
I am the heart that wants to burst yet hardens
I the dusk the Alpha and Omega and yet pointing
towards the end of woeful day

I am Don Quixote who fight the windmills
I look with glorious eye on sea and isthmus
I am Columbus and a bit of Cortez
I be Cook and some Magellan:
I be so many, so much, yet
One,
In whom shines the All,
The All in One,
The One in All on all days.


I am the Dusk mighty and humble.

I am the Dusk who spoke and who now ceases.