Tarot Card of the Dreaming Man, Face Down
DopeBeastie
Posts: 2,513
"Tarot Card of the Dreaming Man, Face Down"
By Mark Conway
Then it was gone, the beatitude
of your body,
*********while the rest lay
******specifically there,
black, black, blue, heavy
as a dead dog, the back
of your legs
*********looking plastic, looking extra, trailing
***behind the rest of you
like a mooch, like a goddamn moron and you
barely there,
****already caravaggioing your way
through the light
*********and dark, mouthing the prime numbers
**of eternity …
We gave you days to continue dying
**and you did
**after you were dead. We
needed time: poor relations
to arrive; to decide upon
the precise symbolism
of the flowers; to complete
the box; nail it into
position; to divest the body
of its slime; to call
your name three times;
to call you three times;
to call you by name three times.
And at first.
You wouldn't go.
***You own this body
***somehow
***thriving within the caucus
***of microscopic insects and dazzled
***acids there to burn you down to ashes
***you over there, you
in your over-there work-body
of the soul, your hooded
spirit released and humming
*********like it's crazy in the light.
Where you are, slipping
**through the monstrous
inner membrane of the world,
you see how it works.
I, like a mooch, like a goddamn moron, live.
We waited for you. Two or three days.
Then an old man came and prayed.
By Mark Conway
Then it was gone, the beatitude
of your body,
*********while the rest lay
******specifically there,
black, black, blue, heavy
as a dead dog, the back
of your legs
*********looking plastic, looking extra, trailing
***behind the rest of you
like a mooch, like a goddamn moron and you
barely there,
****already caravaggioing your way
through the light
*********and dark, mouthing the prime numbers
**of eternity …
We gave you days to continue dying
**and you did
**after you were dead. We
needed time: poor relations
to arrive; to decide upon
the precise symbolism
of the flowers; to complete
the box; nail it into
position; to divest the body
of its slime; to call
your name three times;
to call you three times;
to call you by name three times.
And at first.
You wouldn't go.
***You own this body
***somehow
***thriving within the caucus
***of microscopic insects and dazzled
***acids there to burn you down to ashes
***you over there, you
in your over-there work-body
of the soul, your hooded
spirit released and humming
*********like it's crazy in the light.
Where you are, slipping
**through the monstrous
inner membrane of the world,
you see how it works.
I, like a mooch, like a goddamn moron, live.
We waited for you. Two or three days.
Then an old man came and prayed.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
Then I read it again.
I read it a third time and decided it was brilliant.
That is all.
I've been listening to Leonard Coen, as performed by Rufus & Martha Wainwright, Antony, Jeff Buckley... all week. That's lead me to some rather dark records... Nick Cave's Murder Ballads, Martha Wainwrights' self titled 2005 release... so, this poem, found by accident really... it just fits my recent batch of creative input.
I love the "goddamn moron". You're right... it's brilliant