Cut it out of the sternum
And place it on the altar
I no longer want it,
This bitter heart
In my mouth
A locked chest full of feathers,
Little lockets and silvery trinkets,
Walking sticks and reeds of bamboo,
Straps of leather and heavy chains,
Strange wires and clockworks,
Flowers of unusual, grand, noble gestures,
The teeth of pirates, the entrails of kings,
And the bones of beached sharks,
Now too frail to feed
The carpet needed
A little splash
Of red, anyway
You know, just a little something extra
To accent the curtains
The dusk and the music box
Both wait in the corner
To spit fire and agony
Into the flesh of the evening
Surrender to the waves
The waves were always wiser
They always kept moving,
Never weighing themselves down
Fight off all of those
Ridiculous impulses,
Provocateur pushes
To the edge of another,
Another one of those nothings,
Exactly like all the ones
That come night after night
Resist the pulse,
The catalyst incentives
To do yet more stupid things,
Stupid things like breathing
Sew this dumb mouth shut
With a spool of black thread
Stolen from the undertaker’s
Trench coat pocket
Do it before all of those sounds
Escape
All those sweet, garbled mysteries
That fell into it while I was drunk
On her flesh
And still foolish enough
To believe I was alive
Capture them in stitches
With the Devil’s dried-up veins
And a needle of blackthorn
Line the casket with
Old newspapers
And line the birdcage
With red silk
Pour me a bowl of stone gravel
And a ladleful of sour milk
Plug my ears with wax,
While they are still full
Of her laughter
The ancient cathedral
Has more than enough novenas,
And indeed, the blind priest,
He will not miss just one
Pull out these bloody eyes
With spoons made for ice cream
And press them both tightly
Between the pages
Of an old book of secrets
Here, they’ll be safe,
And spared the pain
Of seeing
Stuff the eye sockets full
Of meaningless words
Wrap it all up, and
Place it all in a box
A box made of yew,
And cedar and cypress
Then, nail it shut with
Rail spikes of iron,
Hammer them in tightly
With the skull of a ram
Stretch it over completely
With the skin of my body
Pull it good and tight,
As taught as the head
Of a plaintive dirge drum
Place the whole lot of it
In the hole and cover it over
With a shovelful of mourning
And a fistful of yesterdays
They’re far superior to these
Rubrics of today’s fabrications and
Tomorrow’s rumors of
Trial-and-error pleasures
But sing to it softly,
As you cover it with fresh earth,
So it will feel less alone
As it communes in silence
With all the roots and rocks beneath
The gris-gris is not sealed
Until you etch the proper glyphs
Into the tablet of lead, and you
Speak the words over it, and then
Place it in the ground
But miss nothing about this,
It is not buried treasure
Make no maps, no monuments,
No markings on the calendar
It is only a sarcophagus,
The coffin of a scorpion
Who dreamed itself once
A bright pharaoh of the valley
But awoke screaming in the night
To the songs of its madness
And it crawled into itself
And there, ever, it remained
Listen now to the kettle,
How it raves and howls,
How it steals hot kisses
From the streetlights below,
And thumbs its raised nose
At wandering ghouls
There will be no snow this winter,
Only weeping glaciers
And the sea will be taking
Its out-of-time cues
From the heartless sun
Who is thankful for itself
The ferryman waits for me,
On the bank of the morning
His oar is readied
And impatiently thumping
It is time to go
©2024 Kevin Trent Boswell
Kevin Trent Boswell 