Hymn

I had a body,

in another life.

I floated upwards in a cloud of morphine

as

He fell;

His hair danced downwards

like a dying leaf;

His skin flaked away,

crisp & white as snow;

His bones were hollowed,

Knuckles thrown down like dice;

His arms were torn off

& became the branches of a great dark tree

A forest that shrouded him

In mist & the pain of the mystic

& above & below, there was void.

& then,

within the self-less void

There was A Song.

The shattered fragments of bone began to shuffle

The ears to wiggle

The eyes to open

The lips to quiver

The whole body to dance itself

Back into being -

Watching from high above,

I begin to cry,

& the tears are rain,

memories,

all the people & plans & dreams I’ve been

[10 years old, perched on the edge of the world]

[the manic shamanic]

[stood on a ledge, I heard the cry of jungle birds]

[the love junkie]

[while they took my blood under fluorescent lights]

[the slug suckler]

All falling like rain,

Spit & spat across the corrugated rooftops of Sierra Leone

Flooding the barren earth

Bursting the banks of a broken body

as the howl of the wind inflates the lungs

& the cry of the bird

becomes the song of the heart

& the rhythm of rain

becomes the beating of veins

& hymn becomes him

& he becomes whole

& I have another body,

& another life.