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The Dead (Poem)

do not tell me the dead do not change – they do, for I have seen this myself

they morph and writhe just as the living, and just as seldom rest in peace

we hold them tethered here in loving bonds or bitter chains

we do not let them go beyond

those who lay beneath the ground, burn into smoke and ash

have their bones picked clean by birds

but leave behind no one to grieve, they moved in such silent ways

though they might have done inestimable good

these will be the truly free

but look! there upon the shelves in bottles of iridescent glass

are arrayed the beautiful poisons, there displayed to dazzle the attention

five lustrous containers, their very appearance preoccupies

I remove one to drink my fill, then heady with ignorance I reel and fall

to find myself within the calm eye of the storm hearing the destructive winds turn into laughter

with a snap of my fingers this disappears, and I return the vessel to the shelf

I am neither a dot nor an enclosing line but both and space itself

poisons, like demons, are not to be feared

befriend them, for they are more helpful than gods

remember what treasures they are

though I would like to hold time in my hands

cradled to gaze into its prismed fragile depths

I would be shattered by what I would see

the ordinary moments with the power to undo

the icy fragment of morning slicking the pavement

the juddering echoes of the bone white moon

the sharp blink of a crow’s eye destroying across January’s eons

the sudden crack of a gunshot felling one hapless deer

and somewhere else men are falling dead

these passing brief are already too hard to know

I cannot repair with my current meager tools

myself being in constant dissolution and dissolve

unbecoming and mostly not there