The Verspertine Rituals

Late afternoon light narrows it’s eyes and warms the leaves’ edges with a sparkled blood-dipped crimson wash,

Vespertine shadows wrap themselves in a deeper blue and hide from the suns’ glancing beams,

​

In each backyard squat barbecues, singed and fat stained sit rusting in wait for the next burnt offering,

​

Silence falls and spreads itself thickly along the streets, only far off sprinklers pulse with white noise in the distant evening haze,

​

Invisible wounds sulk quietly in the dim corners of all and wait,

​

Wait for the thin membrane that separates worlds to rupture, wait for the rituals to begin,

​

light falls towards the horizon as the street lights awake from their daylong slumber, pushing their orange-yellow cascade outwards leaving pools of vague semi-darkness between them and twilight reigns it’s brief monarchy over all,

​

The moon begins its arch into the emergent night scattering faint stars in its wake across a bruised purple sky,

​

A water tower, a black bulbous tripod set against the pearl-white luna orb looms as a monstrous spider over the cowering trees of the park,

​

each begins their journey through the darkness, cloaked in the protective anonymity of paper, paint and synthetic store-bought hair,

​

Distant trucks roar like forgotten caged lions as they shift gears in lowering modulated tonal moans negotiating the descent to the highway’s end,

​

A borrowed face forged from less transient flesh hangs before our eyes, gossamer-frail torn from the tissues of memory and worn anew,

​

Now trick or treat here then repeat after me,

​

I’ll carve your name and on that name I’ll kiss thee,

​

what falls in the suburbs lies lost in these trees,

​

Lies fallow this night between the space where we breathe,

​

And if we shadows have offended

​

While stars have rolled in ellipse descended

​

We walk this night, ‘cross worlds in slumber

​

Through fevered dreams beyond all number