Immortality
You carved out my name on a steel cigarette case;
I carved out my head on an old double bed.
What truths and what hopes and what memories bled
Through the charge sheets that long passed for songs…
You stabbing at my side as I settled to sleep:
Like a season I rose from that yearly defeat –
Seasons are swift, and soon I'll see you bleed.
Did I spit in your face? Did I kiss you goodbye
As your laughter like blood would once fall from the sky
To drench entire towns? I miss those times.
Yes, our history's short as its shadow is wide.
Though we're lost, broken branches, my season's arrived:
I will wait in the woods with a thorn for your side, dear.
So cling to the kerb for not even the birds
Speak of freedom and freedom is not free from words
And as thunderclouds yearn for the sun,
My Icarus tongue is burned numb,
So you say where we run.
Yes, this is the shoreline; there, once, was the beach
And those were the faces you made in your sleep.
The waterfront is bustling again. |
Did we miss the boat only or were we complicit
In the slow steady murder of tides by the river?
Come roll back the months, honey, sit back and shiver,
For now we distribute the blame.
"No blame," said the I-Ching. "Too late!" cried the cut-up.
Our hopes though all realized were never enough to
Escape from the cusp of the heaven we thought that we sought;
Now this is the prison we've wrought.
Yes, this is a prison, of course:
Trapped each in our borders
With nothing before us
Just dead waters calling, The same pools as always
But oarmen are falling like years.
Here these tears pitch my tent.
* - * - *
Now too close for comfort but too far to deceive you
I submit my remit was always to leave you
Behind as yours was to leave me.
I know you agree.
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