IX. Stained Glass and Severed Strings

The light is a fracture, a splinter of blue, That stabs through the saints and the ghosts in the pew. The windows are bleeding a mosaic of saints, In a halo of mercury and lead-heavy paints. The shadows are jagged, like glass in the eye, Reflecting a heaven that’s starting to die.

A violin shivers with strings made of hair, Plucked by the fingers of cold, empty air. The melody’s broken, a discordant weep, That rouses the demons from centuries of sleep. The bow is a razor, the notes are a sting, As the choir of statues prepares now to sing.

“Listen,” the organ-pipes hollowly groan, “To the music of marrow, the rhythm of bone.” The keys are of ivory, yellowed and cracked, Playing a requiem that cannot be tracked. The ceiling is shedding its plaster like snow, On the hollow-eyed dancers who wait down below.

The music is pulling the soul from the chest, In a frantic, wild rhythm that offers no rest. You’ll dance in the shards till your shadow is torn, For the song of the severed is all that is born.