Fog shears the city in half
As masked men stare down from panoramic windows,
Mugs of tea in gloved hands.
Their mornings are silver concentrate,
Smooth steely atmospheres in which to unwind,
Like strange engines cooling in the nickel glow of the shrouded Sun.
They rub encased brows,
Bemused by their own symbolic preoccupations
And the eccentric schemes only they seem to be able to fulfill.
What a world it is as far as the eye can see,
These men watch it remake itself out of a Cyclopean Darkness
No one else is aware of,
And they know that darkness still lurks behind a curtain of light
As real as anything else that ever was.
They have made the trip back and forth so many times
That they can conjure up their own kind of invulnerability
Though every sunrise finds them amazed to be alive.
Like cougars blinking in snow they watch as a new day reasserts itself,
A slim painting of steam that they wrap themselves in
To rest and plan amidst the illusion of enemies.
Whether the early hours are spent sitting, standing, or pacing,
Their feet are firmly planted
In the blue self-existing night from which they work their ways.
From there they have dreamed that the end will be a jolly good show,
How Death will be a stone groove baby.
It is the ring of victory that they bear like some spectral star to illuminate
All great mysteries…
Reality moves as a ray of dawn across inscrutable eyeslits
And not even the morning knows what their designs will be.