SGRAFFITO
Eyelids turned translucent,
The walls of flesh dissolved.
In utter darkness a pool of mercury trembles.
He should place the day upon his forehead,
The moon’s taste upon his lips.
The music of crickets he should place
Upon his ears,
And the music of starlight
Upon his breast.
These veins: bright rivers that knit a certain landscape.
Blood red are the hills in sunlight,
Rust, the slopes, in rain.
Falling beyond breath and beyond sleep.
His two eyes should both behold
His best beloved.
In his left hand, his cares.
In his right, his passion.
Upon his feet
Strong wings of lust.
Small, dark, is the day.
Fevered and wan the sun.
The crow’s wing coughs.
Withered is the hill.
Swells the beginnings and endings, bright burning, dreaming names.
Let him be surrounded
By a great host of angels and demons.
Let him observe as they mutually engage,
Rise and lift, conjunct and consummate,
Until they fall apart slaked, becoming satisfied dust.
This scatter of farmsteads
Glistens white as quartz
Washed desolate,
The cold stream
Of winter’s winds.
In utter darkness an impossible music shapes words.
Light from a billion years
Pours from the sky,
Not casting one shadow.
It sinks to a core of iron and gold,
Filling silent caves to feed a petalled tongue.
In utter stillness everything waits and forgets to wait.
He should focus upon his own coming and going,
The last bright moment of his breath.
The sudden possession of valley roads,
The heralding wing-tips of hill hawks.
His wish is fervently to disappear
From the sight of all men,
So he shall contemplate
The paradox of rainbows.
He shall write his name forwards
And backwards
Until it become a single,
Unutterable line.
Diamond backed
The pines at dawn.
A burning roar,
A stormfront clamour.
Rests within these moments of choice, the fall of dust.
This heart a bowl, a harp, a bird.
Weightless, filled with hope,
An open sky is all it lacks
And courage to give it all away.
—
Sgraffito – a process of scratching through different layers (clay, paint etc.) to reveal what is beneath.
—
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simonhlilly 