A Ghost As If

A Ghost As If  

I am not your keeper O ghost who crouches  

At the grave of my father.  

The body is dead; it is in the shade. 

A pale figure with a sheet for a robe rises from the earth  

(His hair black as ravens' feet).  

With cold-clay fingers,  

He could quell the soul’s fire.  

As if.  

A seagull cries  

In the salted air  

Like a baby  

Calling for its parents.  

There is blood on the land,  

Blood in the rivers too.  

You are not what you appear  

To think. 

You ask too much. 

You confuse amazement with fear.   

I think where you are 

Not 

I am where you 

Do  

Not think. 

Build a fire because it is cold.  

The language I use is the spark to the wood   

And what I do not speak   

Cannot be brought to life or understood.    

We can't go on like this - 

Don’t you remember?  

Do you care?  

Do you dare haunt my sleep  

And if in dreams  

Polymorphous agonies abound  

As the body fragments, liquifies,  

Decoheres, dissolves into atoms,

What would you say?  

He opens his mouth to speak.  

Swear on the sword.  

I swear. 

If curses and prayers are equivalent deeds of the tongue 

Then silence is preferred. 

Punished by his sins,  

He was cut down  

Into pieces. 

I could not gather up the parts,  

Could not save him. 

Fangs, wings, claws, hands, hammers, swords,  

All manner of things to cut and beat with.  

That is hell. 

The ghost is not the body, nor is it the spirit  

(If there is a spirit); 

It is a paper phantasm that bears no word;  

A handkerchief in the wind,  

An insubstantial mist,  

A nothing.  

Ghost depart. 

A king without a throne cannot be king. 

A herdsman who cannot herd is not a herdsman;  

A hunter who cannot hunt is not a hunter;  

A captain who cannot lead is not a captain;  

A father who cannot bear his son is not a father.  

If thou didst ever love.