Bereshith

EXAMS EXAMS EXAMS


On another note, this poem is so full of flaws, and I'm continually changing it.


I have carved my name
with half-formed fingers
on the side of
my mother's womb


My name is Caedmon
under etchings of buffalo
torn and
scattered to mouths
as hungry as the hymns
that reverberate in
the torchlight of our tents

My name is Homer
because it is all I can give them
with my blind poet's eyes
and my shivering voice
that would have torn me from death
as my teeth from the milk
(so that my mother will
know my face)

my name is Odysseus
my name is
Achilles my name is
Agamemnon
for we shared the same womb
these same desperate carvings of knowledge,
the same unfortunate cries
of life and
relentless death
on the point of the centurion's spear


(because we could not gather
or give
without death
we will burn

because we could not touch
or feel
our sons
we will burn

because we are the last
and the first
of our own
we will burn)


let her begin again.

let her gather the logs
of my father's funeral
until she burns pyres
besides smoke-stained urns
for both dead
before stroking my head

and welcoming
one of them
and all the fires that never fall
to the world.