Dark Gardens, a poem

 Dark Gardens

I have hungered but I have not starved;
I have worshiped each vain idol carved
by desires sharpened to a knife,
by the fires that have hollowed life,
left me empty of all wants and needs
and the comfort of all empty creeds.

Hollowed now, I leave myself unguarded,
followed by those dreams thought best discarded;
facets of perception catch and bind me
as kaleidoscopic visions blind me.
Rise up every star I wished upon;
to dark gardens comes unruly dawn.

Whisper to those fading lights above,
what of those we need too much to love?
Owls cry messages across the night,
ask what litanies I might recite —
shadowed prayers for sins too small to number;
in dark gardens I and they seek slumber.

Stephen Brooke ©2024

Possibly finished form (or close to it), but drafts are ever subject to change.