Not Many. Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

Not many.
Few verses speak
Aloud.
Not many.
Not many


Even if the verses
Bring not forth flowing song
Continue Poet-Seer:
Continue


Calculation after calculation
Before the advent of Immortality
A skeleton in the coffin
Made
Face upwards
Ever


You see.
The verse just sung manifests
One reason why we need
Immortality.


On the feast-day
The church all lit.
Full of parishioners
Gilt and lighted
The festive statue.
Transfixed
I saw the church
Filled
By as many skeletons
As were parishioners


Proposal made.
Proposal to do.
So many made.
And see
Where we are heading to.


Storm and water.
Storm and fire
Storm and sound
Lightning
Thunder
Storm of restlessness
Human.


What must care I
For Fame?
Just I reply:
Continue verse
And song
Experiment; diversify
Evolve along
And care not
No, care not.


Waters flow
Somewhat like
Currents
Currents of the brain
Hectic in trading
Intellectually


Wealth counts, but here.
In the skies
I soared by the
Prerogative
Of Poet-Seer.
Not more.
Not else.
Not power.
Not wealth.


A broken heart.
A vessel in the midst
Of the green jaws of tempest.
I.
Now.


Break the jaws of the liquid tempest
See
Just look and see
The island of rest beckons
With the Dawn.


Desperate I made the move.
For what do
When desperation
Only remains?


I need courage.
Fear rules me
Now
More than ever.
Help!


I saw the jaws of Fear
Open.
Yet so great my fear
That I feared not


One word.
One verse.
One poem.
One song.
One feeling.


I saw dusk stealing
Defeated
The poor thing
Had any alternative?


Even dusk fears
For when haughty Night
First stars alight
Dusk disappears.


At the end of the tunnel, dim light.
At the end of the tunnel, fading
Fading sound of a train.


Grimy walls, dark in the tunnel.
From beginning to end,
However you trudge on and on and on.


Ah! that be life my Monsignor!
I make equivalent the dark tunnel
With life, dark, dim light at the end.


The winds are rife
The trees strive
Garden trembling
Deluges falling


I read my drama.
My own verses.
Some.
As I scanned
My eye fell
Here and there.
And I wrote more.


The Will unlimited
Looks over
The panorama
Looks
Looks right above
At the immense heavens
To be as immense
The Immense Will
And
Not limited.


Scour, scour my Monsignor!
You will see drear
The more you scour
Feverish as the miser for the pelf
You search and dig
For fading happiness.


Despair my Monsignor!
That way you will desire
Not, and never ever.
That way
You will draw happiness from her lair.


One emotion is enough – let Time stop now!


In my hand
I took a skeleton head
I looked and looked
So that
Might I will
Immortality
So that I might think
Deep
Deep
Deeper



I know.
I write verse.
I then look.
I see the verse
I have just written in the skies.


Write here.
Here.
Here, my Poet Seer
Here
Then
Then look at the heavens
Immense
See
See what you wrote
Writ
In the face of them,
The heavens immense!


Chest of dreams.
But I lost the key.
I know.
I know the tempests.
I know the roaring winds.
The trembling trees.
The screaming gardens.
The shivering hands.
The trembling brain.
I know what suffering
To find the key.


Coasts that fume with waves
Rocks with spume
Waves of green.
Centuries that whirl.
Times that stop,
Then sprint,
Intermittent.
Ah! the human breast
Emotions
Heave
Restlessness!


Thoughts.
Desperation.
Union of thoughts and desperation.
Then heaving of emotions.
Storms and tempests.
Then quiet.
Immortality suspended
Red-carded by the Referee of Life himself.
Skeleton in a coffin
Looking upwards.


Where?
Where was the black milk of yesterday?
We drunk of it and tasted
That we drunk more.


The stars – well part of them
Had fallen in the cup
Where the black of misery
Sopped them all
And then we drunk all.


Where?
Where was the black milk of yesterday?
We drunk of it and tasted
That we drunk more


In to the heavens
A red cow flew
And flowers after grew


In to the heavens
Started falling night dew
And more and more it grew


In to the heavens
The black of drear and misery
Mirrored our lot of now, we.


Await the Dawn.
In desperation await the Dawn.
Is there alternative?


If so, assert to me.


Desperation here
Desperation there
What alternative but Dawn?


My brain hammers
Yet it be weak and vague
Thoughts stammer.


Even the Voice from the heavens
Says:
Await! Await the Dawn!


The night is bleak.
How many nights
These centuries past were bleak.


So after all
This be one bleak night
Of all those centuries.


The palms over the bastions
Are downcast; with bent heads
They care not for next Dawn
When it comes.


This night my mother
In hospital
Wanes.


This night I in my house
Away from my mother
Wane.


For this night my mother
In hospital
Wanes.


Dim candle,
Light that wanes
Heart sad.


Broken voice,
Hoarse throat
Harsh words.


Deep Soul
Penetrated to blood
Ruthless clinical.