Nearing the Midnight Hour

"And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him" (Matthew 25: 6)


Darkening sky slides in the deafening absence of sound
as the grayish haze hides faintly-lit stars, beside

the neon-smeared pool, an old man gazes beyond
a swath of the stellar sea, comic book on hand,

as though watching the inky blackness swallows
a cruising capsule-crib, ahead of which flies up,

up in the sky, a hero’s tale that is faster
than a speeding bullet, but there is another story

more compelling, he reminds himself: a bloodied,
impaled body hung limply between the dark,

shrouded sky and the sin-stained ground,
his dying breath ascending like flickering mist

but weighed down instead by the sins
of us all, until the tale gets to the part

of the empty tomb, the body rising above
curdled clouds, below which gaping mouths

grapple for words, the way endless silence speaks
in volume, there is this other way that his dying,

and rising means everything, not just believing,
not just a mystery that keeps him waiting,

but how his scarlet sins turned white as snow, even
as he ponders the promises veiled in portents

and oracles, clues remain hidden between
the lines until the advent of the end-times, nothing

to flush from the pink urinals’ sludge, but how
he sips the cityscape’s bitter after-taste, even

the tisane from slanting rains he sniffs
for indelible signs of his coming, for all

signs are flowing traceries of prophecies
he used to say before humming lullabies

of longing, for there seems to be no end
from this lengthened spell of solitude, this slow

infinite waltz of waiting, even as Orion chases
the Pleaides night after night, hurtling headlong

across charcoal-coated sky, below which
the downbound train of worn-out faces, crashes

on the final bend, the screeching sound a faint
echo of thundering hooves, as his sunken eyes

continue to stare at a patch of the dark sky,
waiting for the rider on a white horse, with a robe

dipped in blood, to descend from the clouds, it is
starting to drizzle, the gentle breeze cools

his craggy face, a thunder rolls overheard,
its sound as audible as the last trumpet call.