Under Midnight over Indiana

Explosive hour, electric atmosphere.

Now the mariner mind,

navigator of uncharted ocean,

itself the compass, itself the destination

and the element traveled, itself the hurricane

and the quiet, the magical island and the granite shore,

careered by Time's wind beyond the senses' folly,

descends on Eternity's coherent sand.

There Egypt is province to the West,

Piccadilly flourishes coevally with Babylon.

I walk across my reeling room,

listening for the wheel of doom.

Through smoke-precipitating light

objects lock in strange delight.

Whose are the footsteps climbing everlasting stairs?

From streets the slick whine of tires,

winds ripping deep whimpering leaves,

while ghosts hang in the light and nod,

with voices of fire, acetylene against my flesh,

depict a girl's agony, her grinning grief,

a man, drunk, wild with tremendous dreams,

a woman bringing Mary's smile

above a stand of flowers.

I lean against a falling wall,

hands in pocket, cigarette limp with sweat.

Who is it climbs the stairs, is climbing yet,

continually will be climbing and never call?

Pieces of soul are these visions!

Pitiless their faces float upward into dark,

wheel down vertical heights

where hours, palpable and round,

praise like stars the darkness.

Tomorrow T'll walk across this floor,

and watch the sunlight steal upon the bed.

I'll find the geranium on the sill gone dead.

An unknown hand will knock against the door.