And when night has passed away

i watch you asleep amidst

ravished bottles and

satiated ashtrays lying

on despoiled carpet that once

was a manicured lawn

and sigh.

echoes of the past toll

in mind drunk with

thoughts of sleeplessness and

you as

fingers numb from touching

play lullabies in your hair

in broken chords and

arpeggios long-buried in

the archives of humanity and

transmit the ravaged lines of

romance in haunted

melodies unheard

through your heaving bosom

bare but for the osmotic

film of heartbeats

that shield your soul.

parched lips trace

lines upon your face

searching hopelessly for

an oasis of response and finding

mirages of dreams unwrought

remaining mirages of dreams wrought

in tangle of hair and sweat and

blood.

you stir

raising your face ravished

by the secrets of sleep.

what seeds have the spectral silence

now embalmed in prisoned consciousness

that struggles to flee from

the choking grasp of dreams?

i am useless.

and so remain as i

can merely watch you sinking

deeper into

the poisoned pit of

as deathless slumber and

in the frenzied orgy of

vilified abstractions of sleep

i covet the company of

your mind.