Faces and Souls[]
Masks in Venice, 2009. Photo by Rasevic. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Faces, faces, faces . . .
An orgic dance of faces,
An insane carnival of faces . . .
Mouths and cheeks and noses,
And a crumbled Heaven of eyes,-
Eyes that shine and dim,
Like endless summer-fields
Of twinkling fireflies
Upon some moonless night —
Eyes that seek and grieve,
And laugh and weep,
And stare at last
Like oval chips
Of frozen glass . . .
Faces.
And beneath them
Souls —
Small fearing souls,
Thin, hungry souls,
Phantom sphinxes,
Obscene and cynical —
Souls yearning and sobbing,
And dying . . .
Souls that spew forever
Like slimy Crustacea,
Stony masks of faces
And skulk beneath them.
Faces and souls —
In a mad dance,
In a wild carousel —
Faces and souls,
An infinite desert
Of tombs and silences. . .
This poem is in the public domain