Page 10 - Poems

All ours for the taking: then the times it became,
that mantra, no more than babel. Much like
Onwards and upwards, There’s no mess that dal
cannot redress, or – absurdly – Viking blood
walks with teeth small yet sharp made little or no
sense, sung nonsense the syllables, roaring red-
headed with the drill, the thrum of the wagon’s
(ferric? no, pneumatic) rolling stock, running
full-tilt into bruised pinnae, cochleae, ossicles,
utricles, saccules. Much like the times lights whirl-
pooled overhead with flammable, natant limbs,
their claws reaching to both burn and drown
my eyes. Much like the names that would gallop
then shiver to a near-legible pause – flashing Alésia,
Odéon, Saint-Sulpice, Simplon, Cité, Marcadet,
Châtelet, Château d’Eau, bearings, like ABCs,
in disarray – only to gallop again, jitter in untamed All ours for the taking. The head sways, as flame
delight and turn shy arachnids the next instant. caught in a draught, each time those words kindle
Much like earth and air, much like my carcass, the ears. They nestle, even now, in memory, and ears
renegades fleeing the hemisphere, dragging and eyes spring, in jubilant disregard to all else
ground, speech and sentience in unwilling if grazed against any of their morphemes.
wake. Much like an entire vanishing It’s time I weave new sutra for a shield. One day,
world, everything but two hands, your voice, and its kin, will not cut through crowded
yours, that stepped in to replace thought—large as a dancing stallion on the tracks
lungs, transfuse incremental breath of Saint-Placide. One day, I’ll learn not to see
through gentle, steadying fingers over you, ten years of song to spare, in young men
blood-soaked bronchioles, their radial pulse branded with sideburns and uneven dimples,
serenading life back into a thorax. If rebirth leaving the train at Raspail. One day, I will stop
has a headstone, love, mine should say Line 4, 37 conjuring up cinnamon-toasted Saturdays in bed
minutes after dead of night, two heartbeats away when spice-sellers with obese paniers climb aboard
from Saint-Michel, when spasm-ridden feet at Strasbourg-Saint-Denis. One day, I will even make
found anchor on your faded moccasins, a casket deep enough to place life shared– trinkets,
and LEDs morphed from monsters treasures, the biodegradable dross – for earth
to minions ready to be tamed. to reingest, and leave it all at a non-existent
dwelling far beyond Montrouge. One day,
as the poets said, or should have if they didn’t,
things will return: the moon, the stars, the wine,
some flowers, perhaps midnight—and more flame.

One day, the wound will close its lips, and blame
will cease to pound wakeful nights and days, leaving
grief, gladness and gratitude to cantillate in euphony.
One day, you’ll be a cursive in amaranthine across
the breath you retrieved, time and time again.
One day, there will be no blood.

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