The Poetry Of...
Michael Franklin......................................................
three parts
I
in the day we cut unknown berries from the yard and fed them to the cat.
if he lives tomorrow, we will stuff them in the duck and feast
if he dies, we will gut them into wine for the night that there are no stars.
in the night we made cigarettes from torn pages of your grandmother's bible
and burnt the legs of the chairs for warmth.
when the cat lives, we will dine on the floor and dance to the sound of the creaking house.
i've no wine for now, and i am thirsty.
II
the noises you make when you are asleep are hideous and make me weep.
i am fearful not for the dead. but for the living.
your cat is gone.
III
you are morning's child surely
and as surely, you will die the night.
when eastern winds come westward bound
they will count our bones in what delight!
she
to think of her children,
jagged shadow and crying
she hemorrhaged into the streets
and all light opened the drains
to a sun-glow, drinking them,
breathing them,
her shadow children.
know these:
when to fear dreams.
somnambulant ghosts.
and prayer stitched
into her palms.
her hair turned white as bone
and then began her skull to grow.
she looked of abandon,
with the cock of life in her jowls,
and all humanity braided itself
with the lice.
she powdered her cheeks with lime
and drank gasoline, sat in the
park and bawled with pigeon wings.
of all i saw i know these things.
born of boulders
i am not sorry.
standing bared to the wind i am made, as the sand, and do not walk holding the hand of movement.
i am not fluid, with motion of paper bags and dust.
course will make coarse of the unhidden, and i am unashamed to call myself salt.
burn me into glass, i will break open the sun. let life lock lips with death and call that kiss by my name.
goddamned i am.
born and lived and died again.
grit, i am coarse.
