Nothing Adored Poem by Barry Van Asten

This our dream of man, upturned
By frantic cycles, by reason formed
Into his minor art - his brain
Will suffocate nature once again.
Stripped of senses, he will come
To gaze on multiple man, knocked dumb.
But what fiend slips it's infernal rest
To strut in Sunday morning best
And shuffle in it's eyelid dance
And wade ear-deep in elegance?

Wretched at the invisible kiss
Of nothingness into nothingness,
He investigates the opposite sex
With a pencil, a mirror and a cardboard box.
This, the dark side of his reputation;
The poison in his marrow's infatuation.

His favourite armchair was a veiled gateway
To love's adoration where passions play
Speechless, in courtesan charm and wit
Till Death with his soul-catching net
Sat grimacing over knife and fork
To lure the silent one into talk.

But teatime came and went so quick
Like some effortless magic trick;
His screw-eyes searched for resurrection
As he fisted the air with a perilous question,
But nothing in the question was worthy of an answer.

On his feet, blisters, the size of Alaska,
But he saw sweetness in most things:
His blisters weren't blisters, they were his wings
And this is the tragedy, half concealed
By grim anticipation and love's shield
That has revealed the infinite light,
Cup 'n' saucered through the night.
But in looking back there was no art
To hide the Romaness of his heart,
Prized of all emotion, bent
Upon the workable structure of his element.

Yet some talk of twilight, some of Queens and Kings,
But he squirmed at empty words, darting at nothings;
Audible thoughts were painful to his ears
And he wished them silent for all his years,
For there were no words that could express
The nothingness of adorable nothingness.