- Thomas Kam
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.