in bed, I pretend I am the night hear garden foxes singto what people die in French movies. Bach. Erbarme dich mein Gott [have mercy, my god]
I am the moon. Half blue, half red half mad, half playing dead reading the book of wounds to the stars and back trying to work out how many metric tons of bombs it takes to illiterate the law
Gaza is Vietnam in Arabic, in English, in metric tons foxes circumnavigate the garden singing illahi after illahi Bach after Bach
a gigantic gramophone needle goes round the chest of the night rips open the face of the moon, half mad, half dead pages from the book of bombs written by vengeance geography cavort in space like autumn leaves how many souls have been lost, starved, maimed, driven insane concerto D minor, adagio plays There is a melody born of melody, Which melts the world into a sea. Into a river, into a sea
hear the foxes intone piously – Ich rufzudir, Herr Jesu Christ [I am calling out to you, my Lord]
Sources: Poetry Society prompt; Le Bureau des Légendes; Bach Matthew’s Passion; Martin Espada; The Cambridge Handbook of Compliance; illahi: devotional song; Ralph Waldo Emerson; Robert
Kaplan; Bach: Choral Prelude BWV 639
DARK. here.
I. under the rubble
under the rubble. gardens of dark full of unexploded devices dark dance dark in braille onto dark. to honour the dead left to the dark honour amnesia. honour despair. will you ever know how to train how to train your heart like a dog… possess all that I am, my god
– falling slowly – dark and dust we are all made of the same dust stray dogs circle collapsed blocks singing illahi after illahi half mad trying to work the dark out – half dead – by reading the book of wounds
II. falling slowly
falling slowly, to the moon and back passing St Agatha, the patron saint of rape victims, martyrs, mothers who deliver babies in the rubble mothers who deliver stones, trees,verses of the rain. deliver angels with six wings that sing what you bomb you shall reap
how many metric tons of bombs it takes to illiterate the law? tears, blood, what torrent of gore, tides of disobedience would take to wash vengeance geography’s book of bombs away? light begins. where your breath ends. falling slowly. wings folded on the back.
Sources: Marty McConnell: Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell; St Agatha; illahi: devotional song; Shonaleigh, drut’syla; Robert Kaplan
