(Note: This poem was originally written in 1995 or ’96 as part of a series of sonnets. It was published in Issue 5 of Wine Cellar press in October 2021.)

Untune the lyre, smash the mandolin.
Within each string, another tune rebounds
and quivers.
      Bleach the wind. No color binds
our thousand skies, commands the earth again
again again.
      Watch!
          Listen!
              Even now:
apocalypse seduces myth. Cold peace,
blue-fingered, watches.
           Without sound or trace
careening like a broken wheel, like no
wheel ever turned before. Undoings spill
unmeaningly.
       Anonymous faces:
a hundred islands lost within themselves
—but oh, they are unsalvaged:
              those voices
undiluted: their harmony dissolves
soundlessly:
      undead:
          already in hell.