Hollow Heart Of Liberty

Hollow Heart Of Liberty
© Surazeus
2025 10 20

If dry stones in the waste land sing to me 
with voice of angels in the wordless heat, 
I shelter hollow heart of liberty 
among the heap of broken images 
where branches twist from roots of silent grief 
in angry trees that never blossom fruit. 

Strange shadow of my soul under red rock 
considers something different from our truth 
based on stark fear in the handful of dust 
that swirls in fresh wind of the verdant isle 
where hyacinths bloom from grave of the girl 
whose wet hair shimmers in my morning dream. 

Though I could not speak of my aching love, 
nor could my eyes see visage of her soul, 
I gaze into the silent heart of light 
to hear weird song of ocean waves call me 
with eerie voice of wordless ecstasy 
while I float mute in nothingness of time. 

No clairvoyant with pack of tarot cards, 
posing as graceful Lady of the Rocks, 
attempts to read the fortune of my stars 
then prophesy my hanging from the tree 
when Fame discovers my safe hiding place 
and drags to the public square of faith. 

My secret horoscope in Book of Jokes, 
programmed in riddling code of urgency, 
lures me to walk Bridge of Forgetfulness 
where faceless people, long undone by death, 
still follow guiding star of rainbow wealth 
that leads them to the wrecked ship on the shore. 

Now no one sits on burnished throne of sight 
that shimmers on high ziggurat of power 
before fraught table of the sacrifice 
where the Holy Grail topples on its side 
and spills blood of salvation from the book 
at stalemate end of our chess game with Death. 

Paused on the busy street in cool twilight 
before the bookstore glowing gold with hope, 
I wonder why in sixty years of life 
I have never heard the nightingale sing, 
so I place diamond ring of solitude 
on fractured marble mantel of my heart. 

When long-departed nymphs of faith return 
with Holy Book of Fairy Tales form Hell, 
I sit beneath the apple tree of time 
to meditate on the meaning of life 
as I become Buddha Tiresias 
spawned from the hollow heart of liberty.