Poem. Requiem.

There is no destruction like this, none
other than this. I hear the mom call, the
mother talk, the feather tongue of her ink
the swirl of water in the canal
black as blood of newborn
birth, she is talking, she is
harvesting the sky
she is the wind. GO from here, I tell

you. I tell you again. I will never see you again.
Be brave. I wish you this as you set off
in to the wind. You are all I see, all I
can ever see. And to the me that sees
this: that I see me seeing only you is Thou,
the holy You, the me and him we were was silly
even if eloquently we lingered and called on it
love. We were religulous, born to the city
the excess of brick and wealth that bore the filth
and stink, the poached poverty death-rot out back
of alleys, the ruined food in garbage cans.
We were religulous, raised by rigorous, godly hands.
The eyeless infants in the streets, in the alley ways,
dripping fetid meat in their fat skeleton hands.
We were rigored infants, stinking as they come.

She is working it out, she is working at this.
I am working hard, always, to get away. I don’t
have to work at you, you come no matter what
you humm you sing stink I smell you in the sky.
You were Him once; and true this is yours to you,
man that smelled of smoke and cold clean, of black
and flesh of salt and sounded bare as the wounds I thought
were only mine. You are Him now, man that
on his knees worshiped at the liquid gates of me.
You will be every Him that ever is and yet will
never make a difference.
The mother takes Mary’s hand.
Mary’s hand is brave I tell her this and so she
sinks too when finally she comes. She listens
the mother tongue
is feather in your hands. The feathers are gone
the angel wings, I talked sullen, I talked gently
I spoke again and again. I gave you my crazy
I gave you my opus tongue, you were fit
you were fitted to me, you were fitted for me
fitted by me, around me. You laid down for my death
I never forgot that, drew you to my chest, even now
as though you cant find breath or don’t have
or don’t want, I feather you
antique grave sacred as archetype
of falling diva diving in exile sky
the matter you create, the placenta you
left behind. When did this start? It started way back
when we were twins. Twin towers I gave
you, mother’s love, mother’s knowledge
mother’s hands. What you do, what you found
to do with it since then I can hardly blame you
for you are only man. She is one, I other.
We were holy, twins, twin cities
flames shooting mother hopes
between the funny flecks of skyborn
invisible eyes. Your eyes, you were you
you planned on it, this is what you do
to die. I cant help that. I chant. This
these chants. Anyway. This be my birth.
She is my twin,
my partner now. We helplessly flail
in these spiral voids we try to temper
and leave ever-created.
City streets rubble at the sound of first breath.
I take up shovel. I will dig again.
I will pray and take shelter in the prayer
words I know you still and always will sing.

2/2011 op md