“Empire of Glass”
Crystal empire of glass
Betwixt castles once sand,
Amaranthine as candle wax
Dittoed its blueblood transient,
Hitherto an opulence ambient
Wrought amnesty for absence,
Lest corteges of breathlessness
Oppugn unto ribcage aegises,
Ergo flesh morticed agelessness
Wherefore naught shan’t undeath,
Abreast nexuses sans opaqueness
Indigenous ran oceans calloused,
Nevermore her kingdom porcelain,
A palace of aloneness
Fortressed by invisible forests
Unmoored before reverie horses,
Horizons sunless chased stallions
Mistaking clouds heaven’s pieces,
Whereupon stalks of evanescence
Overran bestrewn limpid pampas,
Aglow moorlands yet diaphanous
Abloom endless liminal grasslands
Afore acreages flowered imagination,
After crofts sharecropped nonexistence,
From symphonized evensong silences
Otherwhere squalls befallen quietness,
Heretofore gardened inflorescent echo
Wherefrom textile masquerade château,
Imperishable apartment bed cathedral,
Whose congregations yet hypothetical
Confessionals buttressed drywall stucco
Genuflected penances apart nothingness,
Erstwhile dearth bequeathed sentience
Yesterday’s remnants remained ruins,
Whereby churches of remembrance
Onetime affixed polaroid crucifixes,
Beneath parapet brick televisions
Amidst basilicas, minarets fictive
Of ballets, menageries translucent
Twinned pennants glinted pellucid
Beholden scepter comprised wind
Tarnished crown belonging skin,
Wherein dynasties of consciousness
Vanished bannermen, bannerets crystalline
Byzantine chevaliers’ shopworn plastic
Festooned heirlooms alike knickknacks,
Ersatz glasslike, commonwealth’s ashes
Memory throne nevertheless everlasting
© 2024, A. M. D’Angelo
