THE  GARDENS  OF  YEARNING

¶

You’ve heard of the gardens of yearning
Where rivers of shining crystal
Flow, and there in the courts of morning
The dead walk again, immortal.

There the boys all have laughing eyes
And they peep from the leaves of trees
At the angels rustling shy thighs
In their summerland sorceries.

There the angels are all young girls
Pubescent in bud and in bloom
And their eyes are like moths of darkness
And their mouths are like fruits of doom.

How they dance all night under Sirius—
By the moondrugged lakes how they dance!—
Now deathless, divinely delirious,
Round and round in a toxic trance!

And one day they wake up all weeping
In the cold harsh light of the dawn
And the dream has fled and there’s nothing—
No Xanadu, no Avalon!

And then with a shock they discover
In the hideous light of the sun
That out of the mists of Maya
The webs of the world have been spun.

O the sun’s made of cocaine powder
And the moon’s a mad butterfly
And everyone’s guilty of murder—
And only God’s got an alibi!

Now the boys are all bent and broken
And the girls have gum in their eyes
And the moon of magic has fallen
Into the dead sea where it lies.

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