Topic: Baghdad

[Nichi]

Two thousand Sufi poets assembled in Baghdad last night
Bullets, rockets and granades flying
Allah heard only their wine voices
Bursting in a fireball straight to Paradise
Bombs and explosives
Illuminated the shame for an instant
Before sinking suddenly to earth

Echoes of their words seep through wounds

~Gabriel Rosenstock

[Nichi]

Sometimes I’m a scarecrow
(i)

Sometimes I’m a scarecrow,
Scared of my self –
My own lies torment me.

Strip me of my clothes
Tear them to pieces
Burn my entrails
That I may hear the agonised
Cry of my birth.
I would move then as a flame through life
I would speak in tongues of fire
I would dance at fairs
I would frighten children
What would I not do!
Traverse the sky as northern lights
As shooting stars from the Milky Way.
Sometimes …

(ii)

Let the raven come
Let it pluck out my eyes
I would make a black comedy of a wedding
I would jump out of my skin at a christening
I would eat grass!
I would drink hare’s piss!
I am a scarecrow
Between heaven and earth
Blind to my fate
My provenance unknown
From my soul’s furnace
Sparks break free
Through my eyes.
Sometimes I’m a scarecrow …
 

(iii)

My head doesn’t matter
Any more –
But leave me my hat.
At Confirmation
I would steal the bishop’s ring
I would buy loaves
And two salt fish
And wait for a miracle
Until I was famished.
Sometimes I’m a scarecrow
Scared of myself – 

(iv)

Who tarred my tongue
And feathered it?
Who cares!
The wind will speak through me
Always
From all points
Icy stories
Travellers
Stories of refugees, of the homeless.
Sometimes I’m a scarecrow,
Scared of myself –
My own lies torment me.

(v)

Bear me to the river
The Boyne
The Nile
Immerse me in the Ganges
Or in the Jordan:
I have travelled through fire
Through desert
And across ice
Headless and faithful.
By Heaven!
I claim a final haven!

 
Gabriel Rosenstock

[Nichi]

Apology

 
I’m sorry to have to say
That I didn’t really get your poem.
Maybe the fault was my own.
I understood every word of it.
Nothing at all in the syntax
Threw me, I must admit.
Rhythm and expression, needless to say,
Were spot on for the times we’re in.
What’s wrong with free verse?
Formality, after all, has bowed out.
 

But what I didn’t quite get was this:
Why did you write it in the first place?
It carries no trace at all of midnight
Sweat, or terror, or exuberance
Nor of your being unable to touch base again
Until your poem was safely on paper
And you had hoarsely called back
Your soul, that, like a Daddy Long Legs,
Had gone cavorting high up in the firmament.


Gabriel Rosenstock

[Nichi]

Apology

 
I’m sorry to have to say
That I didn’t really get your poem.
Maybe the fault was my own.
I understood every word of it.
Nothing at all in the syntax
Threw me, I must admit.
Rhythm and expression, needless to say,
Were spot on for the times we’re in.
What’s wrong with free verse?
Formality, after all, has bowed out.
 

But what I didn’t quite get was this:
Why did you write it in the first place?
It carries no trace at all of midnight
Sweat, or terror, or exuberance
Nor of your being unable to touch base again
Until your poem was safely on paper
And you had hoarsely called back
Your soul, that, like a Daddy Long Legs,
Had gone cavorting high up in the firmament.


Gabriel Rosenstock

Like this one a lot.

[Michael]

Yes, it's a great poem.