What wound is this of yours
that you should keep worrying it?
I like it. It tastes of tears & soil, like a boiled beet.
These aren’t even your ancestors.
But that’s half the attraction, isn’t it?
It’s like a revolution unfolding on the internet:
close at hand yet comfortably far away.
The anguish. The comradery.
But this city belongs to the dead.
All cities belong to the dead.
This one has more trees than most.
And I love any tourist spot
where the residents stay hidden
& don’t ruin our game of make-believe.
What game is that?
I sit still as a stone until words emerge.
They form themselves into epigrams on my forehead.
How do you win?
Someone lays a piece of slate at my feet.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Passage to Exile
- Sacred Teachings of the Ancient Victorians
- Hedera helix
- Boneyard Dogs
- Import/Export
- Mutiny
- In Loving Memory
- One for Sorrow, Two for Joy
- Horror Fictions
- Extremophile
- Curating the Dead
- Artifactual
- Among the Brambles
- Heat Indices
- Grief Bacon
- If there were such things as ghosts
- The life of the body
- The Angel of Confession
- Ghost-writing
- Death Angels
MAN, do you know how to reel me in! The first three lines of this poem, and I was caught, hook line and sinker. I love this conversation with an unknown ‘other’.
‘I sit still as a stone until words emerge.
They form themselves into epigrams on my forehead.’
Dave, this is like painting is for me. You’ve beautifully and succinctly captured the process of creativity!
Thanks, Clive. I’m glad that resonated with you. I am indebted a bit to Vasko Popa, the great Serbian poet, for the idea of a game with esoteric/impossible instructions.