Esmeralda Was Dancing In The Streets

Esmeralda was dancing in the streets

while the King of Fools was being crowned

Hugo was hunched over

a flickering candlelight,

like a grotesque shadow,

goose quill in hand …

in the meantime in a far-and-away land

once upon a time

a poet reads that the nearly dead can never walk

further than an imaginary line crossing over

and under

every house of worship,

the architect knows how dimensions drop

under a misguided moon:

there’s nowhere for turtles

to go except

all the way up

to the sailor’s golden sextant

hidden amoung Pleiades outer reaches

and inner sanctum

not only the bell ringer becomes

stone deaf, when the walls come crumbling

down

oh!  can you hear the people shout?

can you hear their cry?

but for the loaf of bread …

go you and I.