#1244 - the bells are still ringing

 

1244

29.v.23

4.150

the bells are still ringing

for godsbother

 

until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest

                                                                          – Diderot

 

the bells are ringing

they won’t ever stop

 

not everyone believes yet

not everyone attends

 

these are the bells were sent to save us

 

dogs go berserk

driven mad by

 

bells go on regardless

so loud! no one’s ever heard themselves think

 

a bird in the bell must be brief

no nesting

 

here’s a kind of universal tinnitus

heathens beware!

 

many have wished on them

or called a curse

and hallowed be

 

some say it’s a Sunday thing

but the bells are everywhere

 

for sanctification, bells ring themselves silly

there can be no argument with bells

 

a kind of joy to bend the neck

to make obeisance to the bells

 

a king inclines to ring them too

 

all night the bells toll out

bats flee

vampires do their own dark

 

bells drown all the singing

what muezzin could survive?

 

bells are tolling up crusade

bells ring for an auto da fé

and for thee

 

a wedding, a baptism, funeral

crowning

the destiny of dynasties

all these things are to unravel

the bells have spelled disgrace

 

even carillon

was never quite what you’d call a tune

 

bells are well before time

they are after

 

someone has to have been swinging from the rope

 

and like the cuckoo in the clock

they make the world machine

 

should they ever stop

and I know they won’t

those bells would still be in my ears

 

who forged them?

and who hung them where

all the town would have to hear?

 

these are things must not be asked

 

where is the well known dragonfly?

but fast asleep elsewhere