The surface of the canal is stilled momentarily Glass like textured colour of perfected clarity Drifting pellucid azure and liquid wisps of white The grey of gargoyles on the bridge where I’m standing Looking into depths of this quicksilver mirror Marvelling at the pastel vision of innocence Decadent dream of a long vanquished Empire My reflection stares back past and beyond A transitory tranquillity falls like water into water.
The souls encased within the stone of statues,
Chimerical monsters, phantasmagorical creations, heraldic beasts,
Slowly exhale, stir sleepily, vividly animate, move rapidly,
Alight off the columns,
Descend from church alcoves,
Climb down from rooftops
To roam through the squares, palazzos and streets
Which they have always dominated symbolically
But now is the time to colonize the city concretely.
It’s like a prison here,
Capricci etched by Piranesi
Vast intricate labyrinth,
Every expansively sighted avenue and square
Leads onto a oppressively narrow blind alley,
The burgeoning promise of live beginnings
Turning into an inexorable dead ends,
Away from the press of crowds, abandonment,
A series of solitary cells conterminous with the world.
For a fractured moment I was in an imaginary country
(Though all countries are imaginary in the context of eternity)
Dreaming delicately within the confines of the Palace of the Moon
Of melting and malleable nephrite, diamond, mountain
While the scent of jasmine and rose lingered throughout centuries
Sunlight and shade colluded to cast a permanent twilit glow
Rendering every corner, corridor and doorway mysterious
If I stop at a window the view is always surprising, different
Sometimes birds and butterflies hover motionless in the spring riot
At the next flight a blanket of snow covers the sleeping earth
In between lotus eating I await the one mandated by Heaven
The Empress of desires whose kiss resonates on my lips forever
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