autumn is for mustard coloured socks
and knitting sweaters
and the smell of roast lamb and rosemary
Thursday 25 April 2013
the grave digger's collection
I don't believe in ghosts
a collection of metaphysical particles
but I do believe in memories
so tangible
it physically moves you
I believe in what I see
and what I see are vestiges
they stain the air
they haunt me
I believe in howling women
and weeping men
in absence that knits and writhes across faces
in scratch marks in the dirt from clawing nails
I am not a sentimental man
I am confronted with the fleeting nature of life so often it chokes me
but when you've been choking your whole life it starts to feel like breathing
soon, the ephemeral nature of life
seems like the only stoic constant in a man's heart.
I am not a sentimental man
I have seen enough
residual chaos, cold and clutching
I have heard every moribund dirge
every effusive eulogy
I have learnt to breathe.
and now I don't even blink
as I dig a hole to house
a rotting body
I don't blink as beneath me
flesh decays and curdles
as bodies cook in coffins
But every once in a while I do blink
in this labyrinth of finality and fatality
something will catch my eye
will eclipse my determined resiliance
and usurp my curiosity
a body part.
leg...arm...eye...viscera
I'll collect it
my eyes will work quickly
memorising details
texture, shape, dimension
Early one morning
when weak sunlight
bleeds trite anticipation into the sky...
I line up my collection
I take each part out and line them up before my eyes
I inspect them,
a purveyor, a curator
of sacred items, shriveled and swollen
all rotten but preserved... pickled in my memory
in labeled specimen jars in my mind.
A desperate hand
a clenched fist
fingers wrapped tight
a gluttonous leg
swollen with apathy
distended by disuse
a tumour of anticipation unsatitated
a pirate smile
bright and brilliant
mirthful, mercurial and meretricious
that dances even in death
the arm of a lover
curved gracefully in anticipation of embrace
nimble fingers poised
to seek, to search, to soothe
a pair of pious knees
aching and stiff with reverence
fecund, fertile faith
wearing holes in the carpet
the breasts of a mother
heavy with procreant urge
with intimacy, nourishment and comfort
the lips of an erudite storyteller
warm with rambling wisdom and wit
tangential torrents
the feet of a strider
of swift stumbling gait
battered and bruised
but graceful footsteps
clumsy purposefulness
the eyes of an architect
diligent attention to detail
with patterns etched into irises
always seeing the world
as potential space
delighted by angles and depth
what is this collection of mangled memories
and eviscerated eulogies?
I drag the pieces together, desperate for a sense of order, of purpose
they fit together oddly
with a sense and structure that runs deep into my heart
I am a curator. A collector. A purveyor.
I am Frankenstein.
and my creature, a patchwork of body parts
is my own collection of particles,
my own tangible memories
my own ghost.
(this is the poem I wrote for Liv and my second feast - with the theme of 'bodies')
a collection of metaphysical particles
but I do believe in memories
so tangible
it physically moves you
I believe in what I see
and what I see are vestiges
they stain the air
they haunt me
I believe in howling women
and weeping men
in absence that knits and writhes across faces
in scratch marks in the dirt from clawing nails
I am not a sentimental man
I am confronted with the fleeting nature of life so often it chokes me
but when you've been choking your whole life it starts to feel like breathing
soon, the ephemeral nature of life
seems like the only stoic constant in a man's heart.
I am not a sentimental man
I have seen enough
residual chaos, cold and clutching
I have heard every moribund dirge
every effusive eulogy
I have learnt to breathe.
and now I don't even blink
as I dig a hole to house
a rotting body
I don't blink as beneath me
flesh decays and curdles
as bodies cook in coffins
But every once in a while I do blink
in this labyrinth of finality and fatality
something will catch my eye
will eclipse my determined resiliance
and usurp my curiosity
a body part.
leg...arm...eye...viscera
I'll collect it
my eyes will work quickly
memorising details
texture, shape, dimension
Early one morning
when weak sunlight
bleeds trite anticipation into the sky...
I line up my collection
I take each part out and line them up before my eyes
I inspect them,
a purveyor, a curator
of sacred items, shriveled and swollen
all rotten but preserved... pickled in my memory
in labeled specimen jars in my mind.
A desperate hand
a clenched fist
fingers wrapped tight
a gluttonous leg
swollen with apathy
distended by disuse
a tumour of anticipation unsatitated
a pirate smile
bright and brilliant
mirthful, mercurial and meretricious
that dances even in death
the arm of a lover
curved gracefully in anticipation of embrace
nimble fingers poised
to seek, to search, to soothe
a pair of pious knees
aching and stiff with reverence
fecund, fertile faith
wearing holes in the carpet
the breasts of a mother
heavy with procreant urge
with intimacy, nourishment and comfort
the lips of an erudite storyteller
warm with rambling wisdom and wit
tangential torrents
the feet of a strider
of swift stumbling gait
battered and bruised
but graceful footsteps
clumsy purposefulness
the eyes of an architect
diligent attention to detail
with patterns etched into irises
always seeing the world
as potential space
delighted by angles and depth
what is this collection of mangled memories
and eviscerated eulogies?
I drag the pieces together, desperate for a sense of order, of purpose
they fit together oddly
with a sense and structure that runs deep into my heart
I am a curator. A collector. A purveyor.
I am Frankenstein.
and my creature, a patchwork of body parts
is my own collection of particles,
my own tangible memories
my own ghost.
(this is the poem I wrote for Liv and my second feast - with the theme of 'bodies')
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