Fallen

I know now how Monsieur Dumpty felt

As he lay upon the cobblestones

Watching his very essence flow from his wounds

And the golden treasure within was gobbled hungrily up

By the ravenous earth as it slid through the gaps between each stone.

He watched with flickering vision as his soul departed

And his mind and body were left, shattered, behind

Feeling the emptiness within him grow until it was larger

Than the emptiness of the pregnant pause between the moments in which

A wife says to her husband, “I am with child,”

And the husband replies, “It is not mine.”

 

In those eternal moments of which time loses all corporeality

But maintains the wicked sharpness of its canines

You can only reach out with your mind and obliterated heart

For your limbs move too slowly for you to catch the remnants

Of the only essential part of you

Still golden and shining

But fleeing the tarnish

Another’s viscous touch can bring

When they forget the precious nature

Of a fragile ego and delicate suspension

That must remain balanced within you

And handle you as though you were made

Of inferior materials.

 

Perhaps the remnants of my soul

Will be made into an omelet

Or folded into bread for the masses

Or whipped for a sweet treat for those

Who have left me, both voluntarily and

While weeping with the loss

Seeping a little of their own souls

Into the cobblestones

Where my own covers the avenue

In tacky golden blood.

 

Did that merry old egghead wish for Death

To come and collect him, or for one of the King’s

Men, or perhaps a horse, to place coins on his eyes

For the Boatman, so that, with a final sigh of relief,

He could remove himself from the stage of the world

And finally take the respite

A life lived at the behest of others’ ill wishes

Had earned him?

 

Or did he watch in horrified terror

As the hounds that licked up the blood

Of Naboth and Ahab

Cleaned the paving stones

Of his own liquid soul?

 

As I sit watching the gray creep through the russet,

The dark circles deepen,

The teeth grow long and yellow,

The tremble in my hands,

The words that come unbidden in lieu

Of the ones my mind shouts,

I wonder what dogs have lapped up my own soul.

Which dog

Which b***h

Which sire

Which dam

Which pup

Has the biggest bellyful of

My soul?

Whose muzzle is still crusted

With its meal made of my essence?

 

As I watch my own love

Fight a world that is losing color

To the dreary gray

I wonder to myself:

 

Have I made a meal of her soul as so many others have of mine?

Is my belly distended from the engorgement of feasting from her own fall?

 

If my muzzle bears the signs of such a gluttonous action

Let my own run out

And let the horses and men

Mend my body

And let me live

Damned.

Reviews

[Joiedevivre]

God, this is gooood! true, deep, philosophical poetry.

[Craig Froman]

There is a subtle song.. a hum.. that plays under the score of your words.. It seems a tune of old, playing in the painful brokenness of your today.. that wondering.. that longing to be mended.. made whole... Brilliant imagery.

[shoaib]

brilliant piece, you put a lot of heart into this
great work
-shoaib