Death in the Caves of Marabar

From the lips of my dearest beloved

Mine ears did hear words that chilled:
"I could have you killed!"

Dinner at a busy Indian restaurant:

Exposed brick and Venetian plaster walls
Amplify and distort conversations into one unintelligible roar.
Women and men dine and talk, laugh and whisper,

All under an unseen sway of October moon’s hard, full glare.

 

Within the pitch-black, cold black caves of Marabar
Sounds bounce and echo and resound,

Dissolving into one ink-blot cacophony:

The caves of Marabar send men and women mad.

 

Sitting across from my Beloved

At a tiny table by the large plate-glass window

Looking out onto Hollins Market.

October moon, a silver guillotine

Upon the roof-ridge:

The Moon’s silver face in full display,

Moon’s watery sway in full play within, unseen:

 

Words spoken within the caves of Marabar echo

Until mere sounds resound and devolve;

Words spawn fierce echoes echoing endlessly,

Until the one vague and maddening din

Sends women and men alike moon-mad.

 

Echoing against hard brick and polished walls,

A deafening din of so many hearts’ voices,

I heard from the lips of my Beloved:
"I could have you killed!"

Men and women lean in, lean back,

Speaking face to face or with averted gaze;

Women and men speak in moving hands and eyes,

Mouths and hearts,

All motions of bodies and words and hearts,

Vibrations within and without-

Happy and sad, lonely and glad.

Echoing and merging and commingling into one cacophonous din.

The words actually spoken by my Beloved:

"I could have your children!"

 

Faster than a half-blink of an eye- faster than thought-
The bite lands, the poison delivered:

 

Words spoken to my Beloved:
"Surely you are kidding?"

Words heard by my Beloved:
"Truly, he is killing, cold."

Sounds captured through the entrance of an ear and decoded

Within the pitch-blackness, my cave of Marabar:
Awakens, startled, black cobra snake in its moon-swayed lair,

Abed within the base of the brain:

Venom rises like volcanic lava up to readying fangs,

Mistaken words heard, not.

Polite dinner completed,

My Beloved and I walk separate ways

Along separate streets, retreating into deeper tunnels,

Leading to ever deeper caves within
The pitch-black Caves of Marabar.