Poem of the Day. Jack Hirschman
di
Redazione Italia, May 31 2016
Redazione Italia, May 31 2016
Mother
We are not in this
world
a long time ago
it happened it was over:
the world the
war the world war.
world
a long time ago
it happened it was over:
the world the
war the world war.
I took you by the
hand
through it,
tiniest hand, tiniest star.
You didn’t move, then
I
was dead, then you were dead.
In the open mouth of grief
there
is a candle.
I am not with my
breath,
I am the slow peeling away
of the skin
and all that
all the deaths
I’ve seen register
in my eyes.
breath,
I am the slow peeling away
of the skin
and all that
all the deaths
I’ve seen register
in my eyes.
I have been a laughing
tree
beside a stove
of honeyed bananas,
I have been a silver
fox
and the elegance of heels,
I have been what has
brought
you down
and the words you look up,
I have been the
spit-upon
and the ganged,
the slain and the invincible,
the
bitch of moons,
the whiplash of compassion
behind the drug of
sluts,
the red thread that
liberates all convicts,
the
thimble that balances
your jiggers,
the kalimba that wraps
your
nightmares in lullabies,
the power of birth
when a child dies.
tree
beside a stove
of honeyed bananas,
I have been a silver
fox
and the elegance of heels,
I have been what has
brought
you down
and the words you look up,
I have been the
spit-upon
and the ganged,
the slain and the invincible,
the
bitch of moons,
the whiplash of compassion
behind the drug of
sluts,
the red thread that
liberates all convicts,
the
thimble that balances
your jiggers,
the kalimba that wraps
your
nightmares in lullabies,
the power of birth
when a child dies.
We are not in this
world
a long time ago
it happened it was over:
the world the
war the world war.
world
a long time ago
it happened it was over:
the world the
war the world war.
I took you by the
hand
through it,
tiniest hand, tiniest star.
hand
through it,
tiniest hand, tiniest star.
Why should I weep now,
now
that you have entered the darkness?
Many like me are around
you.
Our ether is without end.
now
that you have entered the darkness?
Many like me are around
you.
Our ether is without end.
Should we never speak
again,
you shall write our conversation.
Should my voice fall
short of your heart
(but that is impossible,
you’re still
such a child,
I’m weeping at the window),
other voices will
lift mine
and carry it to the center
of your breathing.
again,
you shall write our conversation.
Should my voice fall
short of your heart
(but that is impossible,
you’re still
such a child,
I’m weeping at the window),
other voices will
lift mine
and carry it to the center
of your breathing.
O my beloved, when you
burst into the flames,
when your bones were blistered,
at those
precise moments,
who drove the seeds in a rapid
torrent of
thighs and targeted
the yearning eggs with glory?
When you grew like a
primer
into a text of rage
at all the injustice of
this
profiteering hell,
when your mind was broken,
when your
sex was split
like Korea, Vietnam,
like the North and
South,
when poisons came with pleasure
and the antidote was
dead,
who cut through the air
as if wringing a chicken’s
neck?
who tore the feathers and flung them
to cushion your
fall?
primer
into a text of rage
at all the injustice of
this
profiteering hell,
when your mind was broken,
when your
sex was split
like Korea, Vietnam,
like the North and
South,
when poisons came with pleasure
and the antidote was
dead,
who cut through the air
as if wringing a chicken’s
neck?
who tore the feathers and flung them
to cushion your
fall?
I am the creature who
runs through the streets
screaming your name against the
mockery,
I am the sleep of the suicide
and the cataract of
immemorial hair,
I am the attack of liberty on the hard of
heart
and the poem on the hard of hearing.
runs through the streets
screaming your name against the
mockery,
I am the sleep of the suicide
and the cataract of
immemorial hair,
I am the attack of liberty on the hard of
heart
and the poem on the hard of hearing.
The solitude, the grace,
the smile
that returns your smile
from the depths of the
biology
of a labor and joy
only the heartbeats of the dithyramb
approach,
only the soul thrums of the cosmos define.
We are not in this
world
a long time ago
it happened it was over:
the world the
war the world war.
I took you by the
hand
through it,
tiniest hand, tiniest star
