Song to Nothing Poem by Ira Cohen

And surely we will die without memory
coming to cold in the shadow of space
& if it isn't too late
for the star to love you
spraying the sky w/ whispers
attuned to galaxies hungry for flame
And if the tongue of night sings
of Albino winos
till the morning light shafts
the doorway
then surely we will die tonight
faceless at the White
Gate
sharing the smoke
w/ ancient shapes in future garb
and you stand somewhere there
on the other side
feeding on the pain of dreamlessness
Wherefrom the misty morning of
white shadows
& the unresisting need to destroy?

Samael, Samael, I beg it may be forgiven
that they may be driven
out of the black into the white
Only let the dazzle remain
for gamblers to surprise,
the strategic diamond, the throne
of compressed bone
in the unshored dark
where only light can forgive
& your mind is singed
Embers of echoes in the vastness
disguise the yearning to burn
blind eyes
in arrogant displays of feeling—
Running wild these beasts will feast
on the newborn kind
for surely we will die tonight
unless we learn to ignore
what the others live for
on the other side of morning
& the Skin of Nothing left by the same
summer
masks the faceless wanderer

O let it happen,
this weird to discover
the shape of Beauty in everything
extreme
for surely we will die tonight
whether we will or whether we
dream
O Samael, forgive the dreamer
forgive the dream

The Song of Nothing is your lullabye.