The Anthem of Decay - Part 4

A high heeled shoe penetrates

the grave, a mask of eyes

There comes a new subtlety, a scum

              free from  stupidity, wilful blindfolds,

Recognising the ant’s venture into poetry.

Call the senses, bless them if you must,

She comes careless, indifferent

to the grave’s violent ennui

Climbing the rain up

The unmasked mountain’s eye

And she says, ‘why do you struggle in my arms?

              Do you not love what remains?

And he says, ‘I have no name,

              my name lacks a soil.’

She says, ‘I has no name?

              I thinks itself dross,

              Lost in its heritage?’

“I am I,” she says

              “And you am I,

              the unscaled invention.

Grind to dust your vanity.”

And he fosters a rage and says:

              “I will be unknown.

              That is not the lot of man.”

And she says; “Heavy is your vanity.

              Your eyes are in your feet.”

And she says and takes the dust,

              pours it across her arm

A river flowing through the land.

“A man,” she says, “deserves no respect

              Until he understands,

Takes to himself

The flesh of every land.

Grind to dust your vanity,

Melt upon the land.”

And she strikes her arm and says, “It is no more

              than dust held mastered,

              gathered an undying tradition.”

And she opens up her arm

Till it laps equally both poles

And is laid equal through the dust.

              And she says,

“Grind to dust your vanity

For only dust can be understood,

Names too false, gendered in hate,

Lying worn uncharitable mirrors.”

And he asks, “How?”

And she says, “Sell your tongue for hire,

              be known as the feeder,

              the eater of dust.”

And her heel penetrates the grave.

He cries, “And no home?”

And she says, “Dust may sit on your coffin.

              Will you die unknowing,

              knowing your bones will never crumble,

              and be made the equal of the dust?”

And her heel penetrates the grave.

              “Rise up,” she says,

              “rise, the dust awaits.”

And her limbs flow out on the ocean tide,

Her hair trailing in the backward eddies

              stretching up into the land.