In some odd way it
is intimated
that moments are preserved
by painting them
to canvas
film
or darling little
binary packets.
Images are made
continuous
and etched
under the sun
and the moon
and the table lamp.
The myth of preservation
is itself
a myth
born from lies
about truth.
With a yellow flare it claims
that a photograph,
skillfully taken,
will whisper
heavy-tongued
into an unsuspecting ear.
Faint wisps of raven-worshipping hair
were emphasizing the bones
that under cloud-white skin
told bold tales of barely
hidden skeletons.
There is a chronic inflammation of the soul
which Pascal
(no great anatomist)
has placed in the midst
of every man;
and presumably every woman,
although he didn’t specify:
it devoured Nietzsche from tail to head
and left gashes in Keats,
made Vonnegut ask horrifying questions in public
and told bad jokes
to Thompson
from the depths of drained shot glasses.
He said that they were searching for God.
Her eyes had the look
of the doe caught unaware
in the early morning.
Her iris,
with the palette
of Gilgamesh’s Hell,
was standing as a tantalizing
query
as to what
the morning mirror
shed its light
upon.
She was looking
elsewhere.
Out in that distance
were the worries
that die in the spring air
when the land rises up
to choke the empty threat
of snow.
It is
impossible to tell
if she is
full of breath
or dying of a hollow chest,
but perhaps she is neither
and is instead
laying at an odd angle
for repose.
This dart of intimacy
finds its own end.
In the morning birds will
sing outside of my window
at the sight of the sun,
or else
the airy touch
of one another.
What do they know that we don’t know?
What are they singing of?
But you cannot take a picture,
with point-and-shoot or purist’s rig,
of grass weaving itself to the wind,
or old warriors nodding their heads
at the rare few who have managed
to live through these many years,
and say that you have given
the story of what went on before.
Although we know this, we expect
them to explain
the crushing death of a nation
with a boy,
face bloodied,
being pulled from under rubble,
or else the legacy of murder
from above
in fields where
only children and mothers
found their graves.
She is digging salt in the world beneath a world.
She is in the bed of a man she’d like to burn.
She is saying that she’d rather not.
She is sleeping in the marshes and waiting for a ghost.
What does she know that we don’t know?
What does she know
that we don’t know?
Which dark secrets
has she laid under stones
in the shadows?
Does she know why she’s alone?
Thought-provoking, rich with images. Every stanza, particularly my favorite, the fifth, are as strong as the last.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this.
And this one.
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