Silent Partner

Badfingered boy
With a pocketful of menaces,
I stalk and lurk
In cobwebbedorridors
Past doors with windows
Of frosted glass.

A death full and rounded
As the life it contains,
That is what –if a genie
Should appear from this bottle
Of wine-I would ask for.

Blessed and cursed,
I consecrate myself each day
To the vow I first made as a boy,
To mine life deep and true.

(To fix experience
In a passable manner,
That will do,
And is probably more
Than I can manage).

I am the keeper of manuscripts,
In love with a dark quatrain;
Contradiction and distraction
Divide me with fierce glee,
Lost twin seeking home.
The angelus of other days
Tolls its summons,
But I linger under arches
And silently wait.