Backward On The Road Of Life

Backward On The Road Of Life
© Surazeus
2022 01 08

The dead walk backward on the road of life 
so we hide their faces in photographs 
to confuse their ghosts that haunt our routines 
with absence of their voices that explain 
what never happens in the wordless books 
which always fly away on broken wings. 

Ten thousand faces my ancestors wear 
appear as floating masks in mists of time 
when I walk through vast maze of city streets 
disguised as Cronus with raven-wing cape 
to chat with their skulls in church of dead gods 
and laugh at stark absurdity of death. 

While I play sad heart-breaking melodies 
with flute I carved from ancient dragon bone 
Lost Princess who loves everyone with joy 
joins me in grove of apple trees at dawn 
as spirit of the lake who gives me light 
with apple that awakens me from death. 

Across Zarathia, land of apple trees, 
I lead long wagon train of refugees 
who seek the Promised Land of fairy tales 
to build new paradise in the waste land 
but build another city by the lake 
where rich landowners control working poor. 

The Money Vampire in grey business suit 
traps the Lost Princess in marriage of hope 
who breeds new generation of fierce gods 
to fight crusade against the Queen of Death 
who gives me mask of Orpheus to wear 
so I stand on the street and play guitar. 

The tragic comedy of our sweet love 
still motivates our journey beyond death 
which generates life in children we love 
who bury our brains under apple trees 
so we can wake again as sparkling fruit 
that nurtures bodies of descendant souls. 

Returning from chthonian cave of dreams 
ten thousand years after my body died, 
I find the Garden of Eden now paved 
with asphalt as parking lot of the mall 
where citizens in land of liberty 
buy clothes sewn by slaves in dark factories. 

Instead of breaking chains of my free will 
through self-control of liberty in law 
I weave despair of death in angel wings 
to fly with Icarus above the world, 
hoping to transcend energy of nature, 
though I walk backward on the road of life.