Do you remember the wind, Cassandra?
Do you remember the fierce, strident howling
Of the wind?
Do you remember the wind's deceit---
The destructive force
That tore our world apart?
Do you remember my face, Cassandra?
Do you remember my eyes
That looked at you with love?
Do you remember my hands---
Fingers touching your lips,
Begging for silence?
Do you remember the night, Cassandra?
Do you remember your clandestine trysts
With Truth?
Do you remember the shadows of the moon,
The frail September moon
That was our only barrier
To the winds of winter?
Do you remember my words, Cassandra?
Pleading for recognition---
Words of adoration---
Words of love---
Reaching for you in the agony of indifference---
Celebrating the beauty of your eyes,
The elegance of your grace,
The ravishing astonishment of your being
The words, the endless words
Searching for an entrance to your soul.
Do you remember?
Do you remember my songs, Cassandra?
Do you remember the music
Sounding only for you,
Only for you,
Cassandra?
Do you remember the tunes---
The breathing of the world
That made the melodies
Of our longing---
Of our longing to somehow uncover the secret
Of ourselves---
Modal melodies of endless delight
Resounding through the night?
Do you remember the dance, Cassandra?
The sculpted movements---
The dazzling leaps---
Swirling, floating---
Effortless
Our limbs entwined in unison.
II. Seduction
Do you still dance, Cassandra?
Do you still sway to ancient tunes?
Do you still prance on myths and miracles,
Taunting us with your naked beauty,
Coaxing us to follow you,
To surrender to your mystery,
To your cosmic glance
As you tread on galaxies---
Disturbing constellations,
Your seductive Saraband
Subduing our reluctant gestures
With the passion of your intensity.
We are powerless to resist---
Even now, I feel your touch---
I see your smile---
I hear your voice
Urging me with alluring innuendoes
To follow you:
You will bring Joy---
You will bring Order---
You will obliterate the past with promises.
Your hair caresses the sky
Outlining the vivid symmetry of your face.
I am drowning in your presence,
Disappearing into the maelstrom of your being---
Passing through to some obscure, infinite realm
Where we exist without impediments.
You rescue me
From the desert
Of my own destruction.
All this time I have wandered
From place to place,
From year to year,
Looking for the answer to myself.
I yearned for Beauty,
For Truth---
But found only the wasted fragments
Of intellectual excrement.
The vast emptiness of myself
Prepared me to succumb
To your subtle inventions---
To your invitations.
Your offer to inhabit
The vacuum of my yearning,
To bring substance
To inspiration
Was an elixir
Of love and lust
Intoxicating me with the illusion
Of artistic achievement.
You are the eternal temptress
Offering the hollow promise
Of immortality.
I am ravished by your vivacious incandescence,
By the sheer magnitude of your vision.
You excavate past dynasties,
Transforming them into mansions
Yet to be---
Dangling the hope of infinite rapture
Before me---
Teasing me into submission---
Blinding me with your radiance---
And Oh!
I am undone!
III. Betrayal
I cursed you for dissolving my illusions
And shaping reality to your predictions.
I plotted to destroy your Truth---
To rob you of your vision---
To blind you with the hatred
Of doubt.
I sought to make you love me---
Knowing then I could control your passion---
I sought to seduce you---
To push you to oblivion.
I disguised my deformities
Beneath the veneer of logic
And persuaded you to betray yourself.
After surrendering to your charm,
I waged my own pretension
Adjusting my emotions
To attract your trust---
Without trust there can be no betrayal.
I won your love by degrees
Through the appearance of devotion---
How could your gift fail to unravel
The threads of my deception---
A tapestry of lies and masquerades?
Yet it was you who betrayed me---
You betrayed the innocence
Of my youth
Through your poses and games.
You despised me
For needing your love---
You despised me
For my ignorance of the world.
Yet my words and my cunning
Slowly won your trust---
You doubted yourself
Even as you foretold
The emerging Truth.
For a moment I pitied you---
I regretted my elaborate ruse---
But as you sought to uncover the core
Of myself
I condemned you
With the curse of disbelief---
You could not survive
The bitterness of my betrayal,
Doomed to lie in the marriage bed
Of the conquering hero,
Finding yourself murdered in the strange, distant land
Of your enemies.
Do you still peer into events yet to unfold?
Can you still divine future happenings
With your persistent glance?
You defied the tyranny of the present
By looking beyond the moment---
Beyond ourselves
Into the secret chamber of Time itself.
Your prophecies were legend---
Dreams crystallized into Truth,
Concretized by your audacious gaze.
Time's guarded veils are stripped away---
Your stare penetrating the interiors---
Uncovering the true path from an infinite array
Of possibilities.
Where are your prophecies now, Cassandra---
Dissolved in the wake of multiple realities---
Of Truth divided into endless corridors?
Apollo's curse continues, even now---
Troy has vanished,
And the towers of Thebes
Lay buried beneath the debris of history.
IV. Destruction
Do you remember the wind, Cassandra?
How it swept us into the eye of the storm---
Even you were powerless
Before the onslaught of such disaster.
Your warnings were not enough.
Words could not quell the wind.
You saw the impending cataclysm
Without a strategy for survival---
You looked upon the empty ecstasy of oblivion,
The shattering silence---
And stood mute before the cyclonic hatred,
Ruthless and relentless,
Murdering all hope.
How could we know
The devastation of hatred
Unleashed upon the land?
We feel the centuries
Of anger
Erupting like smoldering volcanoes
Destroying everything
Leaving the world in ashes and ruin.
The smell of death
Fills the rancid air
With the perfume
Of blood and broken bodies.
Explosions and violence
Rip us to shreds,
Instant instruments of dissection
Scattering body parts everywhere---
The detonation of awesome power,
Explosions thundering across the horizon---
Bombs and grenades blasting new craters,
Defacing the landscape,
Raging against life---
Mortars, mines and missiles
Bursting barriers of decency and compassion.
We employ our genius
To destroy ourselves,
Inventing weapons to wipe out generations
Even as we smirk about the accuracy
Of our assassinations.
We have learned to kill
Better than we have learned to love.
Listen to weeping parents
Mourning their children---
Lamenting the loss of what could have been---
War is the destruction of our possibilities---
The wanton murdering of a frail and fragile future---
Weep world---
Weep in sorrow---
Many lost their sons today---
Many daughters were betrayed---
Sing requiems for those whose only sin
Was to be alive.
You saw the horrors of war
And wept when we did not believe you.
And now I weep
At my betrayal.
Betraying you,
I betrayed myself and the world.
V. Searching
Where are you now, Cassandra?
I search the streets, the coffee-houses, the galleries, the bars---
You are nowhere and everywhere---
Your face is etched in my mind.
I search and hope to find you---
Everywhere I look I am haunted by the vision
Of you.
I see you in every stranger passing by---
Your smile burns into my soul,
Shredding my defenses.
Chaos is everywhere!
Only your presence
Can bring Order.
I feel your absence like a swirling vortex
Devouring reality
And leaving only the void carcass
Of the emptiness of your going.
Truth is shriveled and dying.
Lies convert
Every moment
Into counterfeits,
Expanding illusion
To new dimensions.
Without your vision,
We cannot see.
Without your courage,
We cannot act.
Without your love,
We cannot feel.
Without your passion,
We cease to be.
Why have you gone, Cassandra?
Were we so faithless and cruel?
You opened us to a new destiny---
A world always in the state of becoming---
We could not bear the agony of Truth.
We could not endure the clarity
Of your presence.
The seeds of disbelief linger
Like radioactive rubbish---
Contaminating courage,
Reducing Truth
To fading, half-life radiation.
Wars have raged
And violence violates
The spirit of ourselves.
The land you love
Continues the disintegration
Of humanity.
You had the gift
To deliver us from our destructions,
But we could not listen,
We could not believe.
Distracted by your beauty,
We could not understand
Your generosity.
Distracted by your voice,
We could not translate
Words into wisdom.
Distracted by your eyes,
We could not penetrate
The mask of silence.
Distracted by your presence,
We could not manipulate
The power of your premonitions.
Even now,
Monsters loom within us,
Devouring our souls
With the appetite
Of extinction.
VI. Renaissance
And yet, you live, Cassandra.
Centuries cannot erase
The enigma of your smile.
Beauty lingers---
Echoing your presence.
The radiant clarity of your being
Reveals us
In the Renaissance of ourselves---
Touching us with the splendor of your gaze---
Urging us to abandon absolutes,
Resolving contradictions---
Inspiring us with mysteries
Never to be explained
By the exercise of science.
Remember the wind, Cassandra---
Remember its caress---
Feel the night air
Against your face---
Celebrate surprise
As the oracle
Of reality
Leaping to new manifestations---
Embrace the moonlight
Bathing the tattered landscape---
Remnants of the past---
Lost continents
Drifting toward collision---
Tectonic plates
Shaping new landscapes.
You invade imagination---
Opening worlds
Through your magical muse,
Creating the future
As the distillation
Of all that we have been
And all we might have been.
We peer to the outer edges of the universe---
A vast time machine
Unfolding eons and epochs,
Layer by layer
To the infinite burst
Of Life itself.
Only you could recognize
The future lay within---
The continuum of Time
Progresses from outer to inner---
"Now" is but the eye of a needle
Threading Infinity.
Looking outward,
We see all that we have been.
Looking inward,
We find what we are
Yet to be.