In the Small Hours

        Wole Soyinka        

Blue diaphone, tobacco smoke

Serpentine on wet film and wood glaze,

Mutes chrome, wreathes velvet drapes,

Dims the cave of mirrors. Ghost fingers

Comb seaweed hair, stroke aquamarine veins

Of marooned mariners, captives

Of Circe's sultry notes. The barman

Dispenses igneous potions ?

Somnambulist, the band plays on.

Cocktail mixer, silvery fish

Dances for limpet clients.

Applause is steeped in lassitude,

Tangled in webs of lovers' whispers

And artful eyelash of the androgynous.

The hovering notes caress the night

Mellowed deep indigo still they play.

Departures linger. Absences do not

Deplete the tavern. They hang over the haze

As exhalations from receded shores. Soon,

Night repossesses the silence, but till dawn

The notes hold sway, smoky

Epiphanies, possessive of the hours.

This music's plaint forgives, redeems

The deafness of the world. Night turns

Homewards, sheathed in notes of solace, pleats

The broken silence of the heart.