Death Dies Everytime We Die
By Gbanabom Hallowell.
(for Victor Fashole Luke)
I know that my breast is on fire but I pretend not to know
I know that agony sticks out of my tongue but I insist on chewing
I know that the forest has shrunk into woods yet I sprout as a root
I know that my god is dead yet I tug under my bible
I know that my house is on fire yet I continue to stay in-doors
This clock ticks with dysfunctional legs
death is mad timeless of itself
constipated ocean browsing the mole of hills
death, rhetoric of clay-giant gods
This poem makes itself available
as a bone metaphor
thirsty for the marrow of death.
Today I go figuring the silence
molding in the inner thigh of the restless bone
that quiet silence
creeping between the flesh image
and the skeleton image
such as only a new mortal
or an old mortal would know and not know.
Victor, occasion yourself to life
a rattle in a conjurer’s archeology
you live a simple breath
dead only in the nose!
Victor, you are horseshoe of the desert
camel of the oases.
you did not walk the earth
clinging to a name
did not associate
with the earth’s dust
I have a sandal in my chest to
remember always your arrival
at some place where the earth is not
known as a planet.
You are rain of time fading on two-edged places-
the earth flushes you- the heavens take you in!
Gbanabm Hallowell (c) January 2008
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