1. |
Arrival
03:37
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Arrival
You came here grinning,
like a gash in clay.
You awoke in morning’s throat:
the rivers choked and you were broke –
you scraped a sky from blushing oak,
drew squatting woodlands stroke by stroke.
You landed like lightning,
frayed from flight and smog
Forehead warm, your palette torn,
you came alone all bruised from home,
you found a perch of brown-flecked stone
and huddled small against the storm.
[Chorus}
Opened bare to sallow air,
the caves that hold you swallow me,
and in gaunt prose, those circus throes
that wrack you seek to hollow me:
they’ll fell you worn like sodden corn,
so when I go, don’t follow me.
You courted silence,
like a noble in lace.
Transfixed by sand, you tore the land,
and no command could stay your hand,
no law you’d ever understand –
the hills loomed larger as you ran.
You shrunk into new bodies,
like a shadow playing dead.
You willed the fields to birth their yield;
you chained your zeal, its sins all sealed,
you bore the dead out on their shields;
you shored the cities till they healed.
[Chorus]
A spring long dead now dusts your head
with soil and you won’t call to me –
like a thief drawn awaiting dawn,
I yearn for your awakening.
They’ll fell you worn like sodden corn,
so when I go, don’t follow me.
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2. |
Unease
04:59
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Unease
When you rolled into town and dared the colloquy to bring you down,
they asked you for your deference; you sold it by the pound.
Like wet cloth left to soak the sun, this city warms and stiffens up —
the streets we walk will not repent, cement that scorns its ground.
When I woke my eyes would sting as if ravaged by your brightening;
I shifted in my summer sweat, and cooled amid the earth.
I slouched west like a tired beast, tongue dry and nostrils ripe with peat,
I shunted summer into debt and fled the heat for birth.
Reclining in the rot, and marveling at every meal you bought,
you held yourself to wakefulness, your freedom bought and bound.
You neutered your mythologies and hung them high up in the trees,
then snared me in your restlessness until I cut them down.
[Chorus]
I’ve bartered my apologies like coins upon a scale
whose fickle-fingered engineer has levered me to fail:
the scribe who sorts the measured lives condemns me with his scrawl,
but you remain magnificent the farther that I fall.
I’ll stifle my regret and heap autumn earth to cover it,
like paint to weigh the paper down, or praise to warm the dead.
Your movements flay and fleck these stones, their landscape yields form when you go —
you’ll let it settle with no name, fantastic and unfed.
Recalling how you talked, how your reticence would twist me up,
I’ll say I’m starved for holiness; I’ve fed it like a friend.
The city’s sutured up its scrapes and summer heats its pores agape:
the sly remains of righteousness japing to their end.
[Chorus]
I’ve bartered my apologies like coins upon a scale
whose fickle-fingered engineer has levered me to fail —
the scribe who sorts the measured lives condemns me with his scrawl,
but you remain magnificent the farther that I fall.
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3. |
Frost
03:48
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Frost
One day you’ll move on down
the line and you won’t leave a trace –
I’ll talk to ghosts in dust you’ve scuffed
and gouge the hills to form your face.
You’ll stretch the lakes around your waist
and tell me I’m not good enough:
I won’t let you fill me up –
I don’t talk so much these days.
Autumn will reach and drag you down,
its steepled hands will pull you in –
you’ll beg to drink the rain,
the trees will molt you from their skin.
You’ll crawl back to me shivering
and if your fever does not wane,
you won’t be green again
and fragrant rot will wear you thin.
[Chorus]
You won’t age rooted to my door, I know –
you’ll stay here to wait out the cold.
You’ve been awake – you won’t sleep here anymore,
though you deny you’re dying slow.
I’ll drag you to your hallowed plain on pleated cloth;
though the damp will claim you I will stave it off.
One day you’ll make your home
in nets that sway from swollen ships –
the gulls will hear your call
and pluck the skin off from your lips.
They’ll perch upon your fingertips
and chatter with you when it squalls –
but you won’t smile at all:
each dawn will flay you into strips.
Autumn will come and fill your bones –
you’ll forage for your food alone
and tangle me, my livid flesh
reddened where it feels the cold.
You’ll go out walking on your own
and stay out till the dawn comes fresh,
then limp off to your rest,
bearing dreams like weighted stones.
[Chorus]
You won’t age rooted to my door, I know –
you’ll stay here to wait out the cold.
You’ve been awake – you won’t sleep here anymore,
though you deny you’re dying slow.
I’ll drag you to your hallowed plain on pleated cloth;
though the damp will claim you I will stave it off.
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4. |
Departure
03:20
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Departure
You came from the hills last night and told me you’d been born –
smiles tattered, torn, skin lathered, worn,
breath pumped in steam from bodies that you hadn’t time to mourn.
You came from the hills last night with birds still in your eyes –
your vine-layered thighs, your migrant cries,
you carved yourself from moss to travel iridescent skies.
You have been battered by the hoarfrost,
cajoled to foray into rain,
you have been battered into your love,
distended by the vacant plains.
Your heart will molt its coats by mourning,
a voiceless autumn in your ear;
these hooded cities been contorting
round the contours of your fears –
I’m crying:
you won’t ever come back.
You came from the hills with olive leaves caught on your clothes –
fed fresh from snows, aflood with crows,
you paced the foothills endlessly, mapped winter as it rose.
You came from the hills last night and painted what you saw:
the land rubbed raw, its listless jaws –
you laid your body in its ruts and melted with the thaw.
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5. |
Drought
03:16
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Drought
There’s haze a-risin’ on city towers
that ripen like trees in an orchard,
whose fruit, like a sparrow, will chirp in our marrow
and plummet when juiced and tortured.
My body will idle in summer dew
while the city plays to its dead:
I won’t say I miss this – your steps are hot kisses
on pavement that arches itself to your tread.
[Chorus]
There is a better death:
I will take it with me, feed it more –
you won’t brighten no breath, or darken no door.
No pause for you to bear it:
I will frighten up dust from its core,
‘cause you won’t brighten no breath, or darken no door –
the city sweats out all the things you swore.
Your presence will wane in impassive heat
that closets and curtains this city:
I won’t settle no score; I’m not really here anymore –
I’ll be back and beyond your pity.
The haze a-risin’ on city towers
will dip and distill in its sky.
Like a god that’s been bested, I’ll be resurrected:
the fruit here is fallen – we watch it die.
[Chorus]
There is a better death:
I will take it with me, feed it more –
you won’t brighten no breath, or darken no door.
No pause for you to bear it:
I will frighten up dust from its core,
‘cause you won’t brighten no breath, or darken no door –
the city sweats out all the things you swore.
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Ben Meyerson Granada, Spain
Ben Meyerson is a poet and musician who currently resides in Granada, Spain. You can find more of his work on his website, which he treats as a hub for his creative projects so that words and music can come together more effectively. He can be contacted at benmeyersonmedia@gmail.com. He'd love to hear from you. ... more
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