Andrew R. Mossin
Lament
In the world’s mirror I beheld nothing
but the world-displaying picture of Your face.
Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi
I must bleed when it is dawn I must
bleed when it is dawn the light is fabric
over the black buoy a s system of dying there
when the light is released and my body
is framed in its limits to turn itself
over to insist in the dawn one is dying
one is lifted into light like the angelic
bell inside a tree’s circle….
The burden of living inside the body
thigh cut inside the bone
knot a cut surface of flesh
moon’s ghostly raw surface
like a mouth hunted down
a gash pulled back over denuded skin
You flicker sad woman
flame in the flickering darkness
you died years ago then you
sat outside my house and took my hand
it was yesterday
a moonless blood-knotted night
it was what you said it would be
when you left
a period of silence, followed by darkness….
*
In the agape dark
it was a fire said the woman
it was fire did this
to her meaning
no breathing down wiped
from her face blood stained a crease
where her lips were
seventeen years + seventeen
each is a territory
each is an act of will
torn through the curtain
that separates night from the night before.
Undead
Unholy
Why do you say it wasn’t?
*
‘I must awake in the morning world
The heart ready to ascend…’
Death light by the damp
Light of no light….A lamp no
light….
A stairway in half-
shadow where the first
light appeared above her shaded torso.
Fall? When did she say she would go & how? Imagine
the hand that led her to the door then held itself
out to brace her fall. Was I her
only son
repeating the phrase ‘nothing nothing nothing’
when she came near.
There was this blackness then the evenness
of light when I woke inside the soiled sheets
and found my body
released from hers. A rope
pulled taut
a black line pulled tight across her neck.
*
It isn’t pity devising
the story as it goes
a decade is this long
no longer…
I was ashamed in those first years
ashamed of my maleness
soft underparts she called
‘root of sin’
black matted pubic
hair coated in
menstrual blood…
Male root
Female root
‘Turn your face there is
always this hunger for life.
Every moment your soul burrows into mine.’
*
And those who remain behind – wakened by ancient
song rising from the east
Mourning the secret word
Every second my eyes search Your face
there is no hunger for life
Every moment my soul borrows
black bread from your hands
To search forever but not find
a corner to hide black stone narrow bud.
*
Who heard it said I have no message no warning I have no words left to say to you?
Who inhabited
starless inlet black inbred
Salonikan coast
blue grey gull passing overhead
a body resting not finding rest on shore?
Marine chipped blue black flame rising from the eastern horizon
Were you clothed ‘which house exited’ ‘which night claimed’
paltry exchange at the door when a stranger came to find you
And you were freed of being
And freed from the cut lips of sand
And bathed in the sea freed of will
And took shelter in Orphic dark and gave yourself back to him.
*
‘Come up come up say the days are always this white this long.’
And the bodies are entangled in light bars blackened
flakes of sea grass –
Let us sleep without fear let us
drink foam under a blackening sun.
23 May 2013
Lament
In the world’s mirror I beheld nothing
but the world-displaying picture of Your face.
Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi
I must bleed when it is dawn I must
bleed when it is dawn the light is fabric
over the black buoy a s system of dying there
when the light is released and my body
is framed in its limits to turn itself
over to insist in the dawn one is dying
one is lifted into light like the angelic
bell inside a tree’s circle….
The burden of living inside the body
thigh cut inside the bone
knot a cut surface of flesh
moon’s ghostly raw surface
like a mouth hunted down
a gash pulled back over denuded skin
You flicker sad woman
flame in the flickering darkness
you died years ago then you
sat outside my house and took my hand
it was yesterday
a moonless blood-knotted night
it was what you said it would be
when you left
a period of silence, followed by darkness….
*
In the agape dark
it was a fire said the woman
it was fire did this
to her meaning
no breathing down wiped
from her face blood stained a crease
where her lips were
seventeen years + seventeen
each is a territory
each is an act of will
torn through the curtain
that separates night from the night before.
Undead
Unholy
Why do you say it wasn’t?
*
‘I must awake in the morning world
The heart ready to ascend…’
Death light by the damp
Light of no light….A lamp no
light….
A stairway in half-
shadow where the first
light appeared above her shaded torso.
Fall? When did she say she would go & how? Imagine
the hand that led her to the door then held itself
out to brace her fall. Was I her
only son
repeating the phrase ‘nothing nothing nothing’
when she came near.
There was this blackness then the evenness
of light when I woke inside the soiled sheets
and found my body
released from hers. A rope
pulled taut
a black line pulled tight across her neck.
*
It isn’t pity devising
the story as it goes
a decade is this long
no longer…
I was ashamed in those first years
ashamed of my maleness
soft underparts she called
‘root of sin’
black matted pubic
hair coated in
menstrual blood…
Male root
Female root
‘Turn your face there is
always this hunger for life.
Every moment your soul burrows into mine.’
*
And those who remain behind – wakened by ancient
song rising from the east
Mourning the secret word
Every second my eyes search Your face
there is no hunger for life
Every moment my soul borrows
black bread from your hands
To search forever but not find
a corner to hide black stone narrow bud.
*
Who heard it said I have no message no warning I have no words left to say to you?
Who inhabited
starless inlet black inbred
Salonikan coast
blue grey gull passing overhead
a body resting not finding rest on shore?
Marine chipped blue black flame rising from the eastern horizon
Were you clothed ‘which house exited’ ‘which night claimed’
paltry exchange at the door when a stranger came to find you
And you were freed of being
And freed from the cut lips of sand
And bathed in the sea freed of will
And took shelter in Orphic dark and gave yourself back to him.
*
‘Come up come up say the days are always this white this long.’
And the bodies are entangled in light bars blackened
flakes of sea grass –
Let us sleep without fear let us
drink foam under a blackening sun.
23 May 2013