Of Love, Death and Oblivion, a Poem from "Jersey Blues"

 Edvard Munch - Kiss by the Window, Oil on Canvas, 1892

 

Of Love, Death and Oblivion

Hush!  Sleep!

In the end, it wasn't

other than the rustling

of the wind in empty rooms,

the moribund crackling of fires

of faded memories, the voices

that once awoke us.

You lay down, in this June night,

forgetful and wholly freed from sin.

Faces, sounds, fascinations,

obliterated they sink in the sea,

dark and profound, as the night

in which you became oblivious of

what today no longer is, of this

and many other worlds.

Princeton, New Jersey, June 2003

This is in an excerpt from the Poem "Of Love, Death and Oblivion," from the collection "Jersey Blues: Selected Poems", also available on iBookstore, NOOK Book, and Amazon Kindle.