A Poem For the Raging Dead Men
Their spears did not get heavy,
flower blooms did not sprout from barrels.
Some chew on ancient bullets, many captured themselves.
In dark allies a switchblade blindness entered their hearts.
Everything is a memory.
The living kill awkwardly, randomly with great kindness
a kindness that poisons the tongue, a sweetness
that fattens the maggot.
Such kindness stalks, buries the raging men alive
and the dead men yet survive.
Rumi said: ‘you must dance in your own blood’,
That kind of killer instinct leads you out of the fire,
into that oblivion that polishes eyes.
Mad men attack, they are your own wolf pack.
Embrace the fang, bleed into their mouths
until rage chokes their gorging throats.
If you have a ghost in your heart make love to it
in the gore and the spittle.
The raging dead men
have slaughtered themselves upon a dark stage
far from the light. Don’t pity them,
they are mad with love now,
though they cannot ever be near you,
their heat is a pornographic illusion, just the mud
of a killing field.
They are manacled to greater lusts,
passions only those beyond the horizon of themselves may see.
Those who have come through
are set apart as scarecrows in a field of sleeping dogs.
In the light of day
light candles, scorch the wax until the dark smoke
gutters into absence.
Don’t pray for the raging dead men,
they are all inside you now, pray to set them free
so that you may also dance upon their blood.
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2021
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