Poppyskins
In the kindness of the playground
Aleph unveiled his claws
As Pazuzu scrolled into town
Murderer Murderer Murderer
Small of Destroyer and fi erce in his poverty
My back is broken by his teeth
On the mountain I as He rested
The streams bite into the rocks
Fissures gleaming with transparent blood
Water mimicking the temple
Teeth shuddering in the ghostlike face
Of the faminedeliverer
The locustbringer Adam
The poppyskins were the clothes on the skin
Raw as wind
Pink like jets
Red like the Bibles drifting in the streets
Folded leather Sebek
Root ¥
All the cuneiform all the clay face
The wedges stuck in my heart
And spelled:
"The Murderer is here
Cain is here, and brings strange graves
And pens with poison
The lands he hands to sheep or goats
Clustered on the rock bleating for gold
And mammon"
Cain is here
His breasts torpid
Beasts dissolving in the deserts
Smog and promise and the icon
Leaching wax or rubber
Smiling wordlessly
"Oh Aleph where are you
And your whirling arms and the patience
That took you a trillion years and spears and so
Beak fear and harbour and trains"