CASPER
THE FRIENDLY GHOST
for Mahmoud Darwish & Yehudah Amichai
In the Levant, human violence appears late
in prehistory.
A slit in the sternum, a knick in the skull—
the worn, warm skeleton,
unearthed & stained
with millenia's diverse
mineral sediment.
Indentation like a crater,
gentle slit like glacial rift—
now we make holes, to look like wells
to ten-thousand-years-from-now sextons,
and violence, to them,
may not be lamentable,
it may be itself lament.
___
My prophet distances himself from me
and gives me children who leave no trace.
I am bereft
of spring.
My prophet nears me
through children's blood,
sticky and sweet, it
evaporates
in summer heat.
___
Time
washes everything & nothing & truth
languishes. This
is not work for the mind.
Internal organs speak
an imperative to live.
I lie down with that imperative, at night,
in my bed,
I will the bullets
Slow—
breach my heart
later.
In the Levant, human violence appears late
in prehistory.
A slit in the sternum, a knick in the skull—
the worn, warm skeleton,
unearthed & stained
with millenia's diverse
mineral sediment.
Indentation like a crater,
gentle slit like glacial rift—
now we make holes, to look like wells
to ten-thousand-years-from-now sextons,
and violence, to them,
may not be lamentable,
it may be itself lament.
___
My prophet distances himself from me
and gives me children who leave no trace.
I am bereft
of spring.
My prophet nears me
through children's blood,
sticky and sweet, it
evaporates
in summer heat.
___
Time
washes everything & nothing & truth
languishes. This
is not work for the mind.
Internal organs speak
an imperative to live.
I lie down with that imperative, at night,
in my bed,
I will the bullets
Slow—
breach my heart
later.