War of the Beasts and the Animals

from Underground Pathephone

*

Stop, don’t look, come close,

Sit a while, here, on my breast,

Crouch like a shrub on the steppe

Frozen under a crooked cap

Dig a hole, speak into it

Press your ear to it, catch a sound

And where my right hand lay

Pick the forget-me-not, the weed from the ground.

I can’t make you an answer

I’m slush, a few pounds and no more.

It’s bright here under the oak

Bright with hardly bearable love.

*

Don’t wait for us, my darling

Me and my friend been took.

Reporting back from the front, sir:

There’s war wherever you look.

We’re based down in a basement

In the deepest depths of the clay

They’re throwing flames above us

But we’ve gone away

Some arrived only lately

Some at the beginning of time

All of them flat as playing cards

Fallen in the grime.

And the earth that flows between us

Is thick as wine.

We were men but now

We’re amino acids in soup

The smell of tears and sperm

And bonemeal and gloop

And me I’m singed at the edges

A piece of felted wool

The one who stood at the window with you

Is made of deep hole.

When they lay that table

With plates on damask cloth

When they light the Christmas tree

And sing Ave to the host

When a camel hoof

Breaks the icy crust –

A king’s ransom: gold

Frankincense and myrrh

Won’t light us through the cold

Won’t ward off the hunger

So it was all a lie, my girl.

No need to caress the brambles

Or finger through the copse

I’m the empty corner of old cloth

The earth has lain on top.