National Poetry Month: Dispatch

[brigdh]

It's National Poetry Month! And so, as is traditional, have a poem:


Dispatch by Frankie Drayus

What remains is not your letter
          but what you used to seal it

                    not your fingers
but what they touched
          carved in lapis
                   I wrote you of a hero

          in carnelian
                    in chalcedony

You       impressed –

          not your oil-and-water-name
but your symbol carved to say it:

          in frit a weather-god on a lion-dragon


Which you wore around your throat

         I'll never take it off –
          Not even when I'm dead

or next to your heart

Scorpion-man and bull-man still battling on a little cylinder

          1800 B.C.

                    1700 B.C.

The numbers always speeding towards zero

          In banded agate a king grappling with a lion
          (a mute guard stands by)

What held the breath in
                    the seal out
          you pressed further into this clay

          Wrote the letter I'd at last receive

                   Cover your eyes
                   Say you’ll soon come hunting

          in rose quartz

In rock crystal

          Griffin-demon and griffin struggle over a calf
                    1200 B.C.
                              1100 B.C.

(We count backwards and forget)

Comments

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

That's beautiful.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I really like this one.

[wordkink.livejournal.com]

So lovely.

And thank you for posting this! I was thinking about it just the other day and had forgotten until I saw your post. Now I must rush off and find a something of my own to post. :D

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm glad to see so much poetry on my flist.