Under Indifferent Stars
© Surazeus
2026 02 14

Despite regret for how life has panned out,
based on each strange choice he refused to make,
half-blind Wagat limps on hot river shore
to ask Willow Witch secret of true love,
but her skeleton lies tangled in roots
though her young ghost still shines bright in the sun.

Squinting through half-blind eyes of lethargy,
Wagat imagines in haze of despair
that he sees three tall angels in white robes
bearing swords of flame that glint in their hands
as they float down from hot-air balloon disk
and speak to him with celestial thoughts.

Grumbling in his short guttural speech of fear,
Wagat explains to divine messengers,
who came down from glorious clouds of light,
that his housemate Willow Witch died last month
and her body dissolved in tangled roots,
but her soul should dwell in the clouds with them.

The tallest angel with long golden hair
explains with ethereal voice of soft wind
that chimes with sweetness of morning birdsong
how the world of land and water was made
by hand of Lightning Ghost in thunder clouds,
or so Wagat imagines he might say.

Gasping in shock as tall angels of light
bind his body with thick harness like theirs,
Wagat wriggles to escape as he shouts
when they all ascend high above the field,
and the willow tree shrinks small as a bush
beside the broad river that sparkles blue.

Peering up at vast blue sky of Glow Clouds,
Wagat sees disk of the hot-air balloon
shudder in sudden gusts of freezing wind,
and he howls to see the great mountain peak
that always loomed high where the sun-eye glows
now jut below his feet as they drift past.

Gasping for breath as he tries to stay calm,
Wagat stares surprised at towers of stone
that gleam on the cliff high above the sea,
vast maze of streets full of people and carts
which appear to him like ants in stream beds,
till they land on plat of the pyramid.

Trembling as he walks with angels in streets,
Wagat hopes to meet his lost Willow Witch
in halls of Heaven she told him about,
but they teach him how to pull two-wheeled cart
so he works each day taking trash away,
then cries each night under indifferent stars.

surazeus.blogspot.com/2026/02/…

Orpheus asks the old man hauling the trash cart his name and story of his life, but gives him apple as he mumbles and walks away.

#Poetry #Poem #Pastoral #Necropastoral #MetaModernism #Transrealism #NewSublimity #NewRomanticism #AmericanDream #Cinemism #Existentialism #Surrealism #NegativeCapability #NewGnosticism #MetaRealism #NewTranscendentalism #Astarism