lisps not leaps

[delga]

Skin is marked –
Personal parchment –
Diary, dates, demeanours
(of others who pass)
litter you
are a monument to
you, scribe and scrawl
and use
You are pale and lined
by feint of life
And across your eyes
Words
that scroll, roll over
the tongue, rims the lips
and dip down
over the nose
Ponder profuse over the
brow, line
years of “No!” and
“Never!” – pinch the tender
parchment dry.
Rip the hands
And bruise the fingers,
Tips that tickle
swear and soothe
Smooth the
lines that other
loose onto you:
“There, there,” or
“Hush now,”
And you are marked
by griefs
of score more
numerous than known
“Help me, heal me,
scream me close”. ——

This face reads
ambivalence; this
limb snarls ferocious.
This nose, precocious,
(not demure); these lips
soft and silent
sibilants: soliloquy
they measure out
And mind metre, mild
and childlike
Pitter-patter over time
until they read
remorse: senile
lisps not leaps
within two folds found
firm in lines,
Double underscore.
Parchment ripped
and re-repaired,
Crushed and crinkled,
scrunched and truncheoned
until illiterate.

Close the leaves,
bind the back
(that broken back,
the backwards spine
No longer sweet and
so supine)
With knots and
cords and bunching
flesh; hardened,
leavened, fractured
flesh.

And close the leaves,
enclose the ink,
The stains remain
of life we drink
and think that
stories such as
this (and yours) are
kept in boxes
(bound by wood
that gnarled and
knotted, rotten
wood; left
to leaven in the soil,
to tell the Earth
to read awhile)
    or rather yet
    immersed in flame,
    Cremate the crate
    that holds the brain.

So all the parchment,
marked and bound,
Is left to ash and dust and ground.

 

Comments

[sens-nita.livejournal.com]

*dies*
I love your poetry. It's always so clever.