Bin Ramke

 

 

Krishna Has Eaten Dirt 

 

               §

when gods become boys and girls they first

feel the self reduced by mortality

an emptying printer-cartridge fading

 

its message against the page into whiteness

 

denigration an act of exchange black for white

the open mouth lighting into

 

the closed mouth unenlightened longing

for reverberation       speech

as side effect of breathing and breathing

comes after inspiration

 

             §

from the Etruscan a word seculum

through the Romans then the romantics

the time between the event

and the death of its last living witness

 

(the sound of air exhaling)

 

during exhalation oxygen

during the last syllable nitrogen

during the final sound carbon

dioxide into the air of the mourners

leaks and little epiphanies scatter

sighs and whispers ghostlier

​

grief, there is no grieving

there is only grave and gravity

there is language for loss

they go they come not

 

out of the mouth

the cave the wound

 

             §

the view the dentist chose

his mirror on or of 

the world, the god of mouth commanded

 

all, a view as from a cave

to speak is a toothful

dance tongued also, also an act of lung

and diaphragm. But there is no eye there

 

as Krishna opened his mouth

 

at the command of his mother she then there saw all

that ever was and would be, every where and when

 

the mouth of memory the grinding

teeth the accusation

of boys and girls and gods

 

 

 

Matt Hanson

Zephyr Teachout