The Absence Of Order Poem by Barry Middleton

The song she sings is a charade,
a brief funereal parade.
A mortal song she sings to me,
not weavings of eternity.

And so I sit and find the shade,
canceling all the plans I made.
I muse on time that used to be,
a prisoner of my memory.

I cannot halt the cruel brigade.
A dirge assails the palisade.
Her song seeks no divinity.
It is of earth and turquoise sea.

And in the song, the masquerade,
a rumbling giant seems to fade
and roil amid imagined scree
of spirits and infinity.

The ghostly sea at last assayed,
withholds its genius and its aid,
where outer voices pay their fee
awash with ghastly pale debris.

The lyric in refrain displayed
the sea and song to be betrayed.
And tilting stars may yet agree,
as they embrace the fragile sea.