12-14-2016, 02:49 PM
The Dead
The dead feast on my flesh --
Once it was spring. Once, swings and whispers
were enough. But the cellar opened,
the notepad widened, and some ill-fated
woman in an ancient Greek dress
crept in. Murderess! The basket fell,
a pomegranate rolled, and the text
was filled with themes --
Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve.
(Always with the em dashes!
And that love of punctuation....)
Writing should not be a toil. Days pass
and he's made nothing. He begins to fear
the red-haired woman with the kindly eyes
would scold him for his lateness. Like a poem,
she should ask: "What kept you? What kept you?"
and, in bitter prose, he should deflate
to simple truth: "My Virtue failed."
So he changes his mind. "In the beginning,
God made the heavens and the earth: as his spirit
hovered over the face of the waters, he said
'Let there be light!' and there was light --
and all writing came from that great light
like scars, brands on experience."
(Always with the em dashes!
And that love of punctuation....)
He scatters lamps across the ocean in the hope
that she should follow. Should she follow?
Should she cross into his foggy land
and sacrifice her spirit world for flesh?
dye her hair, powder her skin, and wear
nails for bracelets, strips of leather
for a shirt? But his cross is burnt,
Calvary melted to a muddy flood,
and Joseph's tomb collapsed
to show the trick: carrion-eating bugs.
Moments pass. All his decisions, indecisions --
he considers them experiments. Ever the optimist,
he predicts that in another life....
(What a splendid skill! not to spill
a single drop of blood, not to evoke
the memory of speech, of prophecy.)
The dead feast on my flesh --
Once it was spring. Once, swings and whispers
were enough. But the cellar opened,
the notepad widened, and some ill-fated
woman in an ancient Greek dress
crept in. Murderess! The basket fell,
a pomegranate rolled, and the text
was filled with themes --
Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve.
(Always with the em dashes!
And that love of punctuation....)
Writing should not be a toil. Days pass
and he's made nothing. He begins to fear
the red-haired woman with the kindly eyes
would scold him for his lateness. Like a poem,
she should ask: "What kept you? What kept you?"
and, in bitter prose, he should deflate
to simple truth: "My Virtue failed."
So he changes his mind. "In the beginning,
God made the heavens and the earth: as his spirit
hovered over the face of the waters, he said
'Let there be light!' and there was light --
and all writing came from that great light
like scars, brands on experience."
(Always with the em dashes!
And that love of punctuation....)
He scatters lamps across the ocean in the hope
that she should follow. Should she follow?
Should she cross into his foggy land
and sacrifice her spirit world for flesh?
dye her hair, powder her skin, and wear
nails for bracelets, strips of leather
for a shirt? But his cross is burnt,
Calvary melted to a muddy flood,
and Joseph's tomb collapsed
to show the trick: carrion-eating bugs.
Moments pass. All his decisions, indecisions --
he considers them experiments. Ever the optimist,
he predicts that in another life....
(What a splendid skill! not to spill
a single drop of blood, not to evoke
the memory of speech, of prophecy.)