Measure me in marigolds For in a throw-away thesaurus, outside a church, I grappled with the dappled god of meaning, And lost.
What is light and dark? Where is heaven and hell? If not in the act of becoming one, At the last peal of the bell.
(Pardon my parody, but the juxtaposition is justified)
Am I pregnant with pain? Crawling on the polyester carpet of my burnt-down building, Wondering if the watchman can watch my agony, Or the torch is just an ornament, Like for a cripple is the cane. Should I wither or give birth? Is there not enough on this earth: Pain, I mean; the people they can pray, Dancing upon the anthill, A divine massacre so to say, Thus I ask for an answer and the Answer, it asks: Is that your true face, Or the mask of your masks?
Should I memorise now, The punctuations on my face? Or claw down to a carcass, The primordial preface? Whence time could be tasted, As old flint struck new bone, When men bowed and prayed, To the shape of the stone.
So, Summon me, Suleiman; Who darkened the Siberian plain, Red snow on his arrow-tip From the blood of a thousand slain.
Summon me too, Great Elixir, He of immortal name, Who tore down towers of sandstone, As part of a checkered game.
Summon me, Lady Myleth, She who crowned her husband as Queen, And watched as the kingdom danced On the watered edge of a dagger unseen.
Summon me too, the People Pleaser, For whom did the senate end, But died as an enemy In the circle of enslaved friends.
Thus, my answer to the Answer, Is a question in disguise For isn’t truth an orphan Born out of lies? I ask: Do I dwell on the delusion, That maybe everything is as it should be, That change is a charlatan Only a reflection of what could be, As the nature of all things, Is to echo and not sing, Why tie the knot and be anchored, When you can hold onto the string?
