Joseph Brad Kluge
from letters
left unanswered
Passover Harvest
Part I
a cokewold in a starlings nest
coveting the sacred
the life you bear is
is become a placenta
of sin
a placenta of emptiness
an afterbirth forever unbourne
gestating the hunger that will
never come to term bloating long
after the life you’ve festered
to create love out of a life
as a farmer would weep
starving for lack of seed.
And so you phuck the barren
earth with an empty staff –
a single glimmer of green
whose spring promise
must fight for life and sun
trapped beneath your shadow
bent greedily over your creation
of such selfish intent.
II
inevitably
you will leave or be left
embittered
the shell licked clean
in a rush to scatter
the evidence
that lies here
crushed and sharp
beneath my step
pressed into spring's
living rot
blazing leaves
now a dark
squiggling mulch
a feather, a bit
of bone
oozing upward
rooting me here -
each moment's
tryst - carved
initials burned
into my
bark
the smell
of rotting leaves
is faintly erotic -
the decay
so warm and intimate
a caress
tongued deep
penetrating
between each toe
with so soft a scent
so sad and faintly
lingering
scent of you
drifting upward
along my limbs
into the nest
i would cradle you
until the clock's cry
frightens you
to flight
unsure wings
driven with
too eager a hunger
to appreciate
II
inevitably
perhaps too clever
to wonder
at
nature or intent
able only to savour
so rich a flavour
of gorse
interring so exotic
a meal
cheated
laid forth
mistaking dreams
too tender
to engender.
-jbkluge
16june1998
rev16nov2005