Poppyskins

Poppyskins
 In the kindness of the playground
 Aleph unveiled his claws
 As Pazuzu scrolled into town
 Murderer Murderer Murderer
 Small of Destroyer and fierce in his poverty
 My back is broken by his teeth
 On the mountain I as He rested
 The streams bite into the rocks
 Fissures gleaming with transparent blood
 Water mimicking the temple
 Teeth shuddering in the ghostlike face
 Of the faminedeliverer
 The locustbringer Adam
 The poppyskins were the clothes on the skin
 Raw as wind
 Pink like jets
 Red like the Bibles drifting in the streets
 Folded leather Sebek
 Root ⲥⲃⲕ
 All the cuneiform all the clay face
 The wedges stuck in my heart
 And spelled:
 "The Murderer is here
 Cain is here, and brings strange graves
 And pens with poison
 The lands he hands to sheep or goats
 Clustered on the rock bleating for gold
 And mammon"
 Cain is here
 His breasts torpid
 Beasts dissolving in the deserts
 Smog and promise and the icon
 Leaching wax or rubber
 Smiling wordlessly
 "Oh Aleph where are you
 And your whirling arms and the patience
 That took you a trillion years and spears and so
 Beak fear and harbour and trains"