the blood pear verse:19 and 35
Your shadow bowed its curtain call,
it left for parts unknown,
I struggle on to catalogue the universe,
alone.
You taught me truth from razz-ma-tazz,
for that, I'm grateful too,
for all the words, the images,
the memory of you.
for Anthony Bourdain.
The last iconic drop of water
overfills the cup,
the dead are lost to silence but
you just can’t give them up.
Twisting turns the mechanism
clock-wise to the day,
you offered it a dollar but
your shadow walked away.
I cuddled up against your spine,
you’re belly-soft and round,
you won’t be so euphoric when
your bones are in the ground.
Beauty fades, but bone endures,
we’re all the same to Death,
I shucked my shoes and ran until
I ran beyond my breath.
I left you smudgy fingerprints
and reliquary bones,
the this and that, the why and how,
the sickly pheromones.
I left you pain and endless cups
of chamomile tea,
I left you in the dark beside
the empty skin of me.
There is no grief beyond the heart’s
ability to bear,
the seeds acquire memories
inside the bloody pear.
No resurrection ghost will come
to haunt your murky dreams,
the widdershin machine is less unstable
than it seems.
It’s slow, by any measure you could
quantify by tears,
overhead and underneath,
the music of the spheres.
In between, the spinning poles,
the arc of bluest sky,
the shadow laying on the ground,
the solitary fly.
There isn’t time to count the dead,
their numbers multiply,
too much time makes anything
complacent to the eye.
Bubbles form in brewing blood,
the sugar turns to sap,
blunt your former pearly teeth,
the bones will not unwrap.
If only kissing brought you back,
then Death would turn his cheek,
you and I would find the warm entanglement
we seek.
Your bones will brood eternity,
I’ve seen them bend and brawl,
you’ll rarely see them moving in the darkness,
if at all.
I hear you breathing in and out,
the mechanism speaks,
I promise you, I’ll study your collapsing star
for weeks.
Your skin will lie abandoned
like a dream you can’t recall,
joy is coddled sweet and raw,
but suffering is all.
You’re sweating, I can taste the ocean
cooling on your skin,
every heart that beats for love
is clock-wise to the spin.
Stars implode and gravity
curves bones into a sphere,
matter turns to energy
a billion times a year.
Your shadow bowed its curtain call,
it left for parts unknown,
I struggle on to catalogue the universe,
alone.
Fusion takes the place of love,
we glow the white-hot heat,
we dance the shoes right off our small
incendiary feet.
We tick-tack-toed across the floor,
the air was blue with smoke,
we haloed them with roses as
the mechanism broke.
Your shadow left before your hands
could button up your shirt,
we eye the world with wary eyes,
but beauty is inert.
Your shadow curled around me like
a secondary skin,
a week, a month, a year from now,
the dreaming will begin.
Why would I accept my heart’s
miscalculating eye?
I’d pierce my skin with rusty blades
if I thought I could die.
I’d rearrange the day’s events
to give you time to waste,
I’d cook your alter-ego’s bones
and grind them into paste.
I’d spread it thin beneath the sun,
the bitter parts consumed,
by us, I mean the torturers,
the chosen ones, the doomed.
I wove a nest around your bones
to help them feel secure,
helpless in absentia,
I’m drawn to their allure.
Knowledge passes skin to skin,
it’s best to break the rules,
beneath a swollen sullen moon,
the remnant body cools.
Beauty speaks an ancient language
no one’s ever heard,
I see why you, the traveler,
thought sorrow was a bird.
Its voice was high and musical,
you loved the awful sound,
you packed your bags and left for greener pastures,
homeward bound.
We cried the night the moonlight died,
your shadow flew the coop,
I dreamt your resurrection in
a never-ending loop.
Waking is the hardest part,
we all know dreams aren’t real,
I know it’s wrong to love the moon,
but this is how I feel.
Underneath, we’re lonely too,
there’s little to deny,
there’s more to life than beauty but
it hastens from the eye.
This is what the bones believe:
it’s better to forget,
it’s better to remember things
that haven’t happened yet.
You taught me truth from razz-ma-tazz,
for that, I’m grateful too,
for all the words, the images,
the memory of you.
Cast away your heavy heart,
its need outweighs its worth,
ease your tired bones into
the sympathetic earth.
The body shrinks around its core,
there’s time for beauty yet,
its time to write the story in
another alphabet.
The body wears its history
for everyone to see,
the Buddhist master said it best,
‘to be is not to be’.
jo forrest 2018