Jerusalem Tree~

The desert is the only place

Where a girl can face the solid rock face of a god thing

Calcified in the dead sea of his disturbed disgust

With his own skin craft

Soul grafts not taken as he’d liked

Shedding all across the world

While the people under all that glitter

Burn, and burn without grace

 

“Bad idea, girl.” Pan leans around a cove

Of brittle mermaid memorials

Sirens inside the deep layers of solidity

Entertaining no one

But a troglodyte deaf to it all

 

“It’s always a bad idea to try to reason with the god.”

Girl is a shrug

She knows her shoulders are up for grabs

Might as well enjoy the feel of bone and muscle, and skin right now

 

“And how would you go about your idyllic, utopian solution.”

The god thing makes the desert swell

His voice a bass no singing dune could rival

Calls the crested larks from out the azure sky

To feed the cracks in his armour with feathers and blood

 

“Talk is cheap.” Girl dares

Pand buries onyx hooves in red sands

Prepared to be eaten out of the mythic tattoos

Along his girl’s spine

By a jealous, impatient god

“Let me show you. Bring me a boy and a girl of every nation.”

Pan loves his wicked, clever girl in silence, anticipating the words

That follow

“Every single one a fresh tragedy, a tragic kill.”

 

God thing with bad attitude, furrows hillocks

Knocks a gazelle through a rip in space time

But his curiosity, as always, will get the better of him

This time maybe for the good of things

 

“Don’t disappoint me.” God thing bellows

And makes magik happen

between Jerusalem Gold and Palestine Ash

 

Pan moves close and closer to his girl

His dark hands made of dreams and walnut fur against her spine

To steady her sacrifice

Against her nape his lips whisper

Lullaby’s to ease the pain of . . . .

 

a thousand young bodies from the sky

clouds rip themselves apart at all the blood and tragedy

of bullet holes

knife wounds

torn wombs

girls and boys, rain drops with deep wounds

for the girl with the green beryl eyes

who two steps sideways

skips a pleat

opens a split atom

waiting for her enchantment for a million years

she complies with grace . . . .

 

The first boy opens her clavicle

And buries his unfulfilled dreams inside her throat

The first girl slips through her navel

Rebirthing children she’d shorn from young womb scarred by men

Each body in the shape of pain

Slips through the love

Into the cradle of her epiphany

 

Pan, steady creature

Waters girl with tears

As her little feet branch in gray to run the core of desert heart

In roots expanding

Body willow bends

Arms branch out in branches catching girls and boys

Turning them into yellow flowers

Safe inside the Jerusalem Tree

Surrounded by the briers of bones

And thorns of hope

No god thing could penetrate

 

“Trickery!”

God things goes through his repertoire of violence

And plagues

And disasters

Until god thing is tired

Until god thing becomes bored

And goes back to slumber under the desert

 

Pan

In a tattoo

Against the smooth bark

Of Jerusalem Tree

Plays his lute

For boys and girls

In the heavenly sway of a girl thing’s tenacious dream

 

 

 

copyright:2011vssmd/amusemusepress

 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[w2de35657u687y4324rf]

Marvelous. I have no critiques for this one. Through the inception I did not see a moral alignment with Pan. His character was full of mystic things and undeniable power. Though, in the conclusive stanza Pan was more ethereal than all entities-- all but the girl thing. I loved your description of "the god thing". Even the name is wonderfully satiric. I've actually been wanting to do something of the like. Great work, Selene. 100/100

[.]

You still manage to cast your spell over the words that you write..as if they magically come to life when you breathe into them..of course I understand that this is a craft and you a jedi master of poetry...the force is strong in you ....

[Haim Kadman]

The name of Jerusalem attracted me of course, it's our capital 3000 year already, since King David conquered it from the Yevous and their Kind Shalem, In Hebrew "Ir Shalem means the city (or rather the kindom which each city was at those times) of Shalem". As for Palestine, this certain name was given by the British to our country in 1918, after they've beaten the Turkish Empire. This name is derived from Philistines (in Hebrew Plishtim = invadors, and it's the Greeks that landed on our coasts from Crete and Cyprus. Our Samson courted the Philistine Delaila, and our David during Saul's kingdom fought and beaten Goliath the Philistine hero. Loved your poem Jewel!

[Brad]

good ol' pan leading you through your life...the desert is your heart, s, go to her

[Ed Hart]

i had the boys pull over
when i heard the siren song
rolling over in the clover
i can't tell right from wrong
guess i'll be no more a rover
that's the short of it, and long