rock
speaks volcanic tongues
a dark crown
atop the ragged shoulders
of the wild earth
obscure
and sombre shadow
ebbs and pools
like a deep bruise
upon the wild earth
unseen
wind soothes the
black pearled glass
bejewelled with fractured light
above the wild earth
lower
your human eye
bow and retreat
from the vast chambers
of the wild earth
It was brief –
and nothing really happened –
but if I could do it again
I’d get it right this time
wouldn’t fight this time
think you might this time
and you’d want me all over
again.
I dreamed you
came to me
and wanted to tattoo the night sky
on my body
Starting small, you
cut into me
and marked the constellations
across my skin
Pegasus on my pinkie
Cassiopeia on my collarbone
Lyra on my lip
Hydra on my heart
After that, you
swept across me –
mapped the nebulae until
I was full
Bored suddenly, you
peered over me
hid your inks and left
the open wounds
unfinished and incomplete:
a partial galaxy
Nightmare, by Artie Shaw and his Orchestra.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W59FzOwYIs)
The sound is smoky and
close. The trudge comes:
a march through honey.
I can feel my rusty heart
align itself to the heavy
thunderous pulse, as
the scorched pitch of the
trumpets wheeze out their
melodies with dry throats.
From nowhere, a narrow
squealing clarinet pours up
and down the stave, like oil.
Your kind of jazz beats me
over the head and shoves its
fingers into my open throat.
I am found,
just by chance,
in the clammy, whitewashed hours
of morning: laid
upon the earth.
My sunken heart
is rolled around
behind the quick-closed door of death:
a silent bell in
a baby’s rattle.
Soon after, I am
lifted into a box,
which is stuffed like a fat goose
with offered elegies,
and then sealed.
Sodden and limp,
the smell of me gone off,
the lamplights of my eyes put out:
all my body,
dun and done.
My mouth is a treasure chest
a pit of language
my tongue stirs this cauldron
sounds swell
and drop out of my mouth
like heavy stones
each a swollen fruit
of differing flavours
too rich to swallow
puce
plump
pearl
colossal marbles clacking
against my palette
I savour all
sunk in the noise of it
and too drunk on sound
to climb out
Lay down
on my quilt
wrap yourself in
the tale it tells
feel nothing
in feeling everything
stretch out your hands
feel the weight
of yourself and
thread your veins
into the patchwork
bound beneath you
stitch yourself in
