Hast Thou
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?
“Why Hast thou”?
My unripe hairy-brain makes its claim
to be the image of its Father.
My vision today
could turn a green leaf brown,
or scorn itself, seeing only
the thoughts that feed it.
Forsaken… The melodrama is delicious.
Why? Why do I tilt my head like a bird
trying to see its reflection in the ocean?
Hast thou, or hast thee not?
In this my ninth hour will I find life
or rot forgot?
How can you bear my accusing stare,
how dare you dare
shatter
an accusatory word with a deep saliferous
silence.
Beetle browed I plow. How can You scorn,
the bully-dog furrow of this my marrow.
I am a borrowed creature poured out
- in water drowned.
Fishbowl eyes ogle the underside
of a mystery leased by onlookers.
Hast thou forsaken
Your own fishing expedition?
Hast thou seen, hast thou fled
the scene, hast thou ever been?
Your quietus plods deadly
upon my waters – my flesh
blooms bad.
Father, my unctuousness bleeds.
Yea, these uncertain breaths
rattle a ribbed-caged bird,
make it sing doleful.
Then as a clabbered lump,
I clump your sacred ground,
tromp it down until I am under it.
As a birds broken wing
flutters now slick with mud, now unbroken
and yet un-fluttering
I am this squelched uttering.
Forsake or string me along - go on!
What is this nothing that attracts
like a woman’s eye’s?
Why don’t You go away,
that I might feel You going,
that I might know
You were once I.
Father hast thou remembered me,
or hast Thou forsaken
your once born?
I hear laughter in the ever-after.
Wilt thou tuck me tight into the long night?
Hast thou misplaced me – unremembered?
Will I blunder yet into the light?
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2019
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