I Wail

Keening Call

from Irish caoinim ‘I wail’.

Let me bemoan the toll of told time.
Heard I the herd groan 'gainst ball'd suns,
the moans of sons begotten
from bold ones long gone, 
no more to roam the golden water,
sons bore the home of lesser men in eye bones,
always children must bear the world 
that the dead with war raise out the grave, 
even the hen-house runs cold with the blood,
sun upon our slaughter, fold red rum 
to waning day girdled with numb rime,
beneath such thatching I fix my rhyme. 

From woe come the lowest of lows, 
death to water, teach the fire of thirst, 
the last death is the cruelest jest 
across this green-gold earth,
no hearth to moan home to,
this is some man's dream, 
some sister's wake 
the ship of the body yearns to burn
pile high your heartbeats upon me,
mark me as one who has been amongst the dead,
in burning I offer up
breaths to hold birds, 
sink wings with my winds, 
my left hand is Winter and no groves grow 
where I spread shadow,
my right hand is Spring and the dead
learn to sing seeds into the gray world,
in prayer I draw my life's equinox,
foam fondling dark hair, 
some man's dream 
to relieve Satan's heel 
upon the body's sternum steeple, 
some sister's wake to right all rites,
Antigone's tomb is where? 
That blind prophet out there sitting on the hill,
that's something you ought to see. 

No wonder all sons crow when the worst murder
is the first pulse, 
a curse upon heaven belly,
gleam maced morningstar dentistry
teach a man, a woman 
to wield teardrops, from ash unearth red rubies,
blind limbs in bonewhite gauze
no mask to bind my death's anniversary, 
I am no king, no prophet I am song and dance,
I am not of remorse I am child of repentance
by Jordan's white sands 
I break then am made again,
I am my own sun still roaming rounds by 
the cool wheat fields 
winging stems through dawn
three doors on all directions clap shut,
never again know of epiphany 
no more heat is drawn out the refinery,
give me no Scythian wine nor hoof music.

I only sit by the coast of Patmos,
stargazing heaven's many membered trajectory
of which I moan and sing
no fate to tell but the gift of this alchemy is mine
to wield:
turn the darkest of tears from the sight gorge
into the mildest of islands,
butter dewing the
blades that cross the green grass of Polaris.