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This Kingdom without Dawn

Everytime we say goodbye
The horizon's downdraft seems ready
To swallow us

Faded roses fall from the high Autumn sky
And mournful songs echo through the houses
A green wind drives us from Paradise Street
Tearing down fences
Folding into the woods
Hunting for honor in spasms of earth

The kingdom for which we have been searching
Has had its heart plunged deep
By the knife of the avenger
And love has fallen on thorns
Whose mixed scents and savage powers
Have blocked every possible route of escape

We keep our nightvigils to a nameless God
A fallen idol
Whose rich and vibrant marvels
Have never had time enough to take root
To come back to life and spread
In shrill and ever widening circles

In the shadows of memories sunk before their time
Tragic heroes and beautiful heroines
Seem caught in the plague dance
Of the strangled trees
Stacking sheaves
Uncovering secrets
Falling together 
Blindsided and housebound
Abandoned to fear
And a haze of faint laughter

Now and tomorrow
Shut up in the thickets of the ashen city
We will wear our wounds
As flirtatious as diamonds
Allowing only the wind and the rain
To cry free from the grip
Of indecipherable strangers

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