When heartbreak, leaden, unlids

      When the paraffin coffin's wronging box,
      Leaden, unlidded lies unlocked
      And out of slowly sowing soul inwound rolled,
      Twined and twinned in winding sheets 
5     And the bloodblack body's shroud
      The heartbroken ghost like leaven flies--
      What then shall stand in the haranguing sands?
      Harrassed and houseless and unshrouded and crowdless,
      What mood doomed ghost in mist-shifted night
10    Or quenchless kiss quizzed from soul's naught knot
      Sighing life never could quite unlatch
      Flies riven and shriven in haranguing sands?
      Now risen and simple and unadorned
      In the doorless moon (and dead and bettered 
15    By our dying damn) we stand on crookshanks,
      And the bold lie from shelled ear and shellacked lip
      Slips up the tripping ladders like a thief
      Moaning unknowing what once-living kiss implored.
      Stands in winds in sands in silences
20    That in us trumps all bones or guesses
      That lies down never in the manger's knot
      (Straw raw insistences of gods unbegot)
      That that moves ruth-ready to the sea-shoved shingle
      Where are and were and will-be may mingle:
25    Human and ruminant in the unready new,
      Sole holders of somewhat we dare not possess,
      Illimitable amidst our humanness.

 

From the collection "Nobody Poems"

Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]

More information available on gregglory.com.