The Shoulders of Giants

The mangled trees caress the midnight air,
Brightened by the night’s holy pupil.
I saunter through a sea;
Of gravestones.
The spectral widows of History;
Adorned with crowns of moss.

Through this emerald lawn,
Adorned with countless names.
I dance with angelic moths and
Wispy hollows in a droopy maze.
Neither Life nor Death instruct me.

Curse the Greeks; I recollect chasms.
Sterile spirits; the Ancients are barren tutors.
Who convinced them of pedagogical graves?

With scarlet awe, and utopian condemnation,
I was waited on. I’m visited.

Your pride presumes you Constantine,
I manifest in self-terror;
Your muses are disappointed.

We are that trampling diaphanous crowd.
Crawling shrouds and straggling souls.
Clanking and dragging our chains;
We reek of chill laughs and bony clicks —
Leaving behind Beauty’s dust.

Anxious timelessness; the ghosts of the Greeks
Had watched over your crib.
They held your hand as you followed.
The dead cant bury the dead, neither can the living;
Our decaying skulls have diamond tongues.

Revive us, Constantine, corporealize us into
Your colloquium in fear and trembling.
Our ghastly wisdom will be your Magnum Opus.