Poetry’s Lament

For Zardasht Osman

I.

Who has died?

Not from the sharp angles of my succinct metaphors

nor the poisonous shimmering of my images.

But from the brutal blade of silver

slicing through muscle.

A copper-nickel bullet plowing its path,

piercing the pulmonary.

A white-knuckled fist wrenching

fragile flesh.

Violence is not metaphorical or lyrical.

There is no song to it,

no rhyme nor clever meter.

Only the low guttural groan of sudden

grief, then howling a keening loss.

Violence speaks its own language

babbling nonsense to the living.

II.

Who has died but from my absence?

From a failure to connect

words to the act of living,

to connect living with meaning.

In Northern Iraq, a man is murdered

for writing

a poem.

What stitched his heart to rhythm?

What rhyme rasped from his throat’s final breath?

Surely not regret for sense and sound

but perhaps a lament for the empty

hands sweeping over the burning

sands. Perhaps a sighing for his kin

before he took flight over his homeland.

III.

I have lived on lips,

died on tongues.

My words wend through speaking

breath—inhaling, exhaling the desire

to be heard, sounding out the syllables

of living, blocking out grief’s moan.

I cannot stop gruesome death,

only speak of it.

And poet’s die,

not from my melodies

or tenor, but

from my lack.

©Ami Mattison

Flickr photo courtesy of e3000