#242 - first word & nowhere beyond the smoke of our fires

 

11.ii.21

412

2.42

nowhere beyond the smoke of our fires

 

ice almost over

still huddle

am animal here

 

a telling round the story

nowhere but our own cliché

 

we were a habit once, went along  

could shit on the beach

none the wiser

a sea took

 

no echoes when you called

 

walking through a war zone

naked, with the target on my back

 

here we wake the bones to dance

skin map of inches so

 

there’s nowhere beyond of

piece of time the heart beats home

 

up the ladders yet

come clouds

from chimneys

tell around

 

to wake the hapless

 

where are the wings not gone?

 

and from my door

everywhere leads me

every way home

nowhere but the way

 

first word

(early inkling thereof)

 

wheesht or we’ll be heard

 

of course a cry, plaint

join the singing

 

first word gone as soon as heard

was sacred

a rattle

kind of death made kings of         

others learned to quail

that was the word and pass it on

 

all others already

and yet to speak

laid out for care

in this first seed

 

had no roof

no wheels

but it rolled off the tongue

and kept a fire lit

 

shelf spoken to life

was the tree took down

 

was already far in the pages when

pale the dawn

spoken without cap or socks

 

[cognate of all others, mind]

of course the rude suggestion

 

half hiss half growl

teeth polished to a sharpened tip

 

mis-spoke midchase

and it was parliamentary

(pale spent syllables)

 

time was already in it

no one had yet sniffed

like pencil to the sunlight gone

moment never to be repeated

 

faithless, long forgot

it was forbidden before the law

 

never got that breath back

came with mothers’ milk

 

it was an US-thing Ur-word

and I the bellows thereof

(howl for a forsaking)

whispered in a look of love

please tell me again

            so urgently

we made another world