a poem by Lukas Bartsch

O gracious crucible of my lone soul,
Many a night I drank deep from your well
Falling beneath the stormy waves in whole,
Enchanted – cursed by your alluring spell.
Old – older still than Prometheus’s clay,
Yawning just beneath the veil thin, unseen.
Realm of Oneiroi, god of sweetest lies:
Cast me not back to the light – let me stay
Stay beneath starless skies which long have been,
The boundless patrons of my onyx eyes.

When she emerges from the vast depths below
To call upon you with harsh, cold command
And shroud June’s flowers in driven snow,
Let not the display of her power grand
Besiege the levees of the mortal will.
Heed her oratory but not her call.
Turn, then, away from Erebus belovèd,
Her deceitful nightsong echoing still
Far behind your heart through the timeless hall,
Ere’ your soul wanders the fields of the dead.

For her countless eyes are ponds without light,
Tombs of men far too conscious to remain,
Who dwell now in darkest eternal night,
Their forgotten inquiries died in vain,
For their gaze was imprisoned by her then,
To be mirrored back into them in kind.
Reflections all consuming, piercing through
All but the most Diogenean of men.
No – no, revere her not for you will find,
She will gaze longingly back into you.