On Beauty IV

By

George O. Obikoya

The celestial gong awakens me deep in my dream;

like the onslaught of the alarm clock on my ears

a bright beam hits my eyes like a sun in my face;

a shade dimmer than the torch that, awhile before,

an angel shone on the way to heavenly truth;

at last to rouse me from my endless slumber deep;

free me from torment caged in a boundless gaol;

to play with the king crabs by the old bayou again;

that, none now really cares to know it’s full or dry;

“It’s just an old bog!” And a refuse dump, they say.

Until now a mixed world in ecotonic bliss;

the grace of the crabs’ strut along its miry banks

belies their speed retreating into netherworld;

to hide or die hounded by friends and foes alike;

truth in the blend of land and sea my mind ignores;

perfection manifest in the skunk, bugs, and floods;

armour against the fury of tides, winds, and storms;

a sanctuary for the haunted, large or small;

beauty in wetlands in the chaos of my dream;

grounds my faith in sacred order in the void.

Perfection in this emptiness my mind must seek;

truth, the accretion of order in the void,

in beauty my eyes behold to pleasure my soul,

my heart, its every beat a sting pang, moans to lack;

yet flowers my taste that my soul it never betrays;

like the bachelor’s button my love evergreen;

reared by a firm faith in the rainbow in my dream,

to lead me out of the darkness in the void;

see the beauty in itself that perfection brings;

in elephants not just tusks; poppies, not a high.

Why must truth and love forever so shun my soul?

The perfection my mind seeks in my tearful eyes?

Tired to see beauty like a hound a squirrel treed

or the scarecrow on me not even my cowl hides?

Why like hares trapped in a warren truth must be?

Wolves, officiating priests at a cyclic Hadean feast:

Why it’s time for me to love, save my soul, to live;

in me as here, is my mind; its abode for now;

its beauty to relish; in its truth, its perfection, seen,  

felt, thought, even fancied in, the gods; the elves.

Why my mind must not rot for aye devoid of faith:

faith, the only way to plant sacred truth in me;

save my soul in peril lost in cosmic voids;

unite with my being, in order it must to live;

order even chaos in the void must seek;

to steer its eternal celestial peregrine;

where its beauty in ultimate glory will shine;

why in harmony the sun sets astride the moon

and in an eclipse they revel to daze my mind;

remind me of the truth of order in void.

It matters not if an object or on my mind;

tangible or intangible; seen or unseen;

pictured or presented; if it dyes me in awe;

not even the zillion ways it may seem to me;  

tin can, oil drum, grain bin, aerosol, or nada;

nil, naught, nothing, zero, zip, null, nix, nothing!

Really! Yes, really, as is all in the warren;

timid truths rendered in gonzo semiosis;

that my soul with help from the Lethe, forgets,

en-route eternity, ferried across the Styx.

Why the sparrow must not yet sing my dirge;

my mind begs my soul to not leave me in void,

not rendezvous for gem or acumen with gnomes;

is ready to embrace the perfection of the Sphinx;

to suckle her Pierian breasts; be steeled on her laps;

that in my soul, truth and love will forever delight;

twinkles in my eyes and my crusted frown erased;

like a child my tentative truths steady with time;   

as my eyes train my mind to unite with my soul;

in sacred truth revealed, in order in the void.

Why to seek perfection in the void is noble;

but not deny its lack, sublime; mother of faith; 

in what should be coming home now heading away;

love incrementally fast receding from view;

alas, truths it bears, fickle like the morning dew;

melted in hearts that for long banished holy faith;

that love truth in beauty sires my mind seeks in vain,

faith in order, for perfection in void, gone;

mounts, cliffs, caves and canyons awe no more;

why my mind must pray with all for order to reign.

For accretion of truth in beauty to sire love;

joy of beauty veritable carrier of love;

the truth of love, in minds, ever pillared by faith;  

love spread to all peoples with apostolic zeal;

that truth in faith only is beauty, and pleasing;

endorsed, may save humanity from want and war;

the bayou, the arcane paradise of the blessed;

children from masquerading wolves in hooded robes;

the peddlers of inert ‘truth’ disguised in the rose;

my soul; from knaves who willingly rejected faith.

O truth where art thou in my hour of ache?

Gloomy eyes chiseled with tears ravage my mind;

my life in lasting void is all but assured;

my soul is about to wither away for aye;

left back in accretion of disorder to waste;

yet faith illumines my mind and saves me from rot;

rekindles hope; like water douses my blazing flames,

floods my mind to quench the blaze of death within;

that it not engulfs even my soul in limbo;

for truth in order beauty reveals to prevail.