Saturday, July 14, 2012

Mystic


Mystic


“The air is a
mill of hooks”
—Sylvia Plath
Mystic

The sun used to bloom—
Like a geranium leaping
From the bed into a
Brand new day

The chimney used to—
Breathe in the morning
And the heart hadn’t
Stopped beating yet

I remember great love—
Oozing and leaking
From every molecule
Of my daily existence

But now there is only—
A humpback poet in
An unwashed cottage
Choked by clematis

North Tawton with—
Its St. Peters Church
A graveyard full of
Fetid wombs and flies

Beneath gaunt yews—
Leaning in the twilight
Smog creeps from traffic
Along Market Street

The hiss of tires—
In the rain, the strain
Of being used up each
Tight rodent-faced day

Spooks nibbling at—
The rotting façade of
An ancient cathedral
Full of the living dead

The lengthening shadows—
Amidst the gravestones
Where love and tenderness
Leave nothing to remember

There is no remedy—
No pieces leftover to even
Want to pick up and glue
Back together again

Here is where I buried—
Both of them back near
The cemetery’s stone wall
Under a dead yew tree

My turn to be mystic—
A shotgun in one hand
And a shovel in the other
Smiling beside still waters









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