from a god unknown (poem)

Fair are fallen all the days that i had thrown unwillingly away,

And the screaming of the friends and faces never to come again,

Blown like money at the dogs and doldrums of a vacant game,

Known and unknown, remembered, disremembered, waxing dull and grey.

I had known the names of knaves and villains, fools and princes,

Kissing and blessing, loving every one by name, seeing their faces

Shatter and reframe,

The full surfeit of life's expenses

Spurned and sundered all the same.

I am cold cities like a rock is solid, i am lone streetlight like a sea is deep,

I am the question mark scrawled over knowledge, i am the drunken loner in the street.

I walk from here to urban deserts, where, like a joyful column, pilgrims meet;

I am not sad or dully cowed, i see the limits of the crowd,

Full of still movement and with joy replete.

No, no, no, it is not sad, to be so full of spirits and of doubt,

Couples in shadows that fully yearn and drag, and never cast their eyes about;

There is a diamond in the desert, there is a summer in the fall,

Only the precious hope is holy, only the heart can never pall;

It's hard, hard, soft reality, mother and mistress of us all,

That kicks and kisses, hits and blesses us with gall.

So in the silence of the moment i can give up tones,

Those chords that grow melodiously, dischordantly from men alone,

So frightening and foolish, so deftly thrown

To mortals in their sorrows from a god unknown.