The Poem of Everything

“Myself, I have a pilgrimage to make to the One dwelling in me. They offer lambs; I offer my breath and my blood.”

Husayn Ibn Mansur Al Hallaj: 857-922

“From my solitude I come:

To my solitude I return.”

Lope De Vega

Master, noman, everyman, wombman

Ghostman, whispers furled till the waking hour

when the flower runs its curled stalk

creeping from the ground to the thin sun strong

in the low day, new sky young

coloured still by the old, memories

anchoring to the past, this present

this coming,

Opens the crescent

To the eye, the stretched horizon

Circled and circling the red, rooftops

Burnt to gold, windows awake to the kiss.

Sea swerve past the shore, thin water flanks

Backward move the scree, rounding edge

By edge the earth, its swell, the wrack;

The moon tide pulling at the depths,

This day signed begins:

Beginning

Spring,

budding tints this eye and that,

Reaches past the curve this hour, colours

The latitude brothers, sisters

The same spring sprung signatures.

No visible disorder clouds come breezed. What plays?

She wanted to get back early,

Left the party, started to walk;

Didn’t have the fare; could’ve asked,

We’d have given her a lift

But it’s just around the corner,

A right, another, a left,

you’re there: There they found her stomach

Ripped open, bottles crushed into her eyes.

“We’re investigating the significance of chrysanthemums placed by the victim’s head. We haven’t ruled out the possibility of links to a cult of some sort, an underground sect. We’re appealing to the public to come forward with any details to help in solving this terrible crime. Our prayers go out to the parents and family of this young woman in this their time of sorrow.”

Change the record: abstract ecstasies follow.

"If I could be with you

I would be nowhere else

Every shadow bears the mark of you,

Every moment is a reflection of you.

Every moment is you and you are

in every moment that is

Babe, we can dream,

Dreaming is free.”

Before the boorish Neopolitan crowd

Maria[1] bent, bouqueted the radishes,

acknowledged proud the brutish louts:

‘I have pleased you well with myself.’

Stomach swollen, corded suddenly spits

Splits; riding eddies, the rip and turns,

Fourth coiled beasts, part u is me fission.

In credible currencies the barter burns:

The child, is just, is slapped quiet, bundled into the back. They drive to the hotel, enter by a back way. Waiting the buyer there. Just off the plane, travelled half way across the globe, he says. ‘This is prime steak,’ the driver tells him,’ very good stuff.’ Turns the child showing every which way. ‘See,’ he says, ‘been plucked pure, just for you, for you man.’ Smiles all around. Whisper in signs, strike a bargain, shake then leave. In the room he begins. When begins the scream takes a sock, stuffs silent the mouth then wiping his brow ties tighter the ties.

Syntax denied the whurld takes flight

Plantied by the night Saturn phades

Cullours shreaded degrailed Cascades

The preyer ghost wite kite white bright

The scream jumping the gap synapse

Lands to brand each gene a bastard

From high the first a startling relapse

Grace grounded blood gels no longer heard

The tongue that taught love.

Sea skin shimmering river runs

Still feeding without bounds dry noons.

‘Teeth pushed through, were stuck to his lips. Mouth puffed up, perforated with sores, blood crusted his face, his sides, had soaked the pillows. Terminally ill, they said. Better he die. Was left without food and water. Fourteen days. Just drugs they gave him, keep him quiet, and he such a talker. Wouldn’t look at me no more. That’s how I knew things weren’t well, he wasn’t right.’

The report concluded:

A deliberate policy of liquid and food denial was adopted

In all those cases judged, within strict guidelines prescribed,

As hopeless. Drugs were administered

To ease the suffering until they died.

“No comment.”

I an empty house, uncrowded

Bricks failing, mortar denied,

Incomplete, uncapped, wounded

Architecture unrendered.

Burnt butts prayers wither on the vine

copyright (c) 2001-2005 Pilgermann BM

---

[1] After a performance in Naples Maria Callas had vegetables, including radishes thrown at her. Picking up the latter as if they were bouquets she stood, like the diva she was, proudly acknowledging the abuse.