A Bleeding Poem (Audio)

                       I

Poem bleeding, seeping, trickling

With blood, raw emotions most blunt

Is what I write, parading it to fight

Poem protesting, projecting, most

Frightening, faceless, decapitated

Amputated, crying out in the depths

Of hollowness, sutured, unsecured

Most obscured, uncured is the poem

I write

See, wrote I perfumed palaces

Blind to all its fallacies, furnished

Chandeliers, shrubbery, lawns

Everything the rich could own

But that poem bled still

Steel is not what made it

Twas like a dog’s heart transplanted

To a rhino’s—serenity amidst inferno!

Wrote I everything picturesque

The mountains, the fountains, the landscape

But what for?

Of hypocrisy, heresy, lunacy?

What for?

Of dilly-dallying, molly-coddling?

What for?

Of damage? haemorrage?

                     II

So ghastly an image

A bleeding poem, fractured stanzas,

Sprained meter, bloodied rhymes

Sombre, sad like October,

Severed, feared

Air scented with antiseptic

Etherized, pungent

Like an adulterated detergent

Abused agent

Unwashed gent

Formless, soulless, heartless

A bleeding poem, screaming at them

Hollering, venting, not circumventing

Pointing, needs no anointing

If you are allergic to horror

Why then do you put up with terror

Stare at the gnarled form

Electrocuted in the fiery storm

Gaze at the faze, chase the gauze

Keep guessing, it is death amazing

                  III

In the circle of death

Mortality spins round and round

Most profound, chaos is the High Priest

Debris is the shrine, bilge is the paraphernalia

Inter alia, mania let loose, fear on noose

Tweedle little human flesh

Perforated, peppered

Served on the altar of human greed

For our cannibal taste buds, we agreed?

Why are you horrified then?

Bon appétit

                 IV

Why are you horrified?

A bleeding poem, in a bleeding world

With a bleeding inspiration, for a bleeding

Motivation, Peel off the gloves

Unmask yourself, smell the blood

Raw wound wasn’t bad like a rotten one

This is the real thing, some sterner musing

Sorry folks, I forgot to warn

Of cadavers, blood and death

You see, we don’t plan collapsing bridges

Or the spurting blood

Do we?

Forgive me if I am being bold

Bleeding poems haven’t been told

Until they flooded our doorsteps

Or the rancid smell of decompose floated

Sorry, death is not fixture to be slotted

                      V

Had I wanted, I would have been blind

Blind to the blight, refuse to look at the paint

Hard enough, enough to notice the dark theme

Had I wanted, I would have painted my own

Canvass, revealing Africa in all its glory

But I keep on seeing elements of its gory

I would have painted the Maasai

The wildebeest and other beasts

But sorry, my creativity bore me to

The Maasai pushed off the cliff

The Wildebeest unmotivated, lives most stiff

C’mon, don’t frown, I am not a clown

If I were posturing, telepathy I would not be conjuring

Had I wanted, I would paint the glory of the African Sun

In all its shades, even when to the West it fades

I would mimic the laugh of the hyena

You would cup your ears

                       VI

But I ask, why do we bask

In the sun we are most clueless?

Shouldn’t we, rather, grope in the darkness

With a hope of light, even with sadness?

What ray should we illuminate

If we can’t fulminate?

How are dark things illuminated

If before time they are eliminated?

How does blood trickle

If they are with chemicals made fickle?

What is a heart most enduring

If it is shielded from the sun most searing?

How will a bleeding heart clot

If it is hid in the furnace of suppressed emotions unfought?

                       VII

Poem bleeding, seeping, trickling

With blood, raw emotions most blunt

Is what I write, parading it to fight

All you need is a toolkit

This is no child skit

Hemorrhage is no sleepwalker oddsey

It is no fantasy

C’mon, uncover the jetting blood

Stop the spill, save your stunt

Harangue later, don’t harass

I am also harassed, the pain, the shame

The blame, the game

I could also want to be a spectator,

Or rather be a commentator

But what for? How do we talk of

Swabbed wounds? How do we describe

The pain we don’t ascribe?

Which expertise do we merit

If not what we claim to inherit?

Or isn’t it blood and all

After all, a free for all?

                      VIII

So let the bleeding poem be

Crawling stench of soul’s morgue

Embalmed, uncalmed, uncharmed

Let the bleeding poem be

Let it mix with our artificial colognes

Hypocrisy! The air is thick with death, bloke

If I were you, I would heal the wound

Protect the scar, leap in fright from afar

I would keep my soft spot close with me

Not exposing them to life’s weird talons

But then, go on, peel of the scar

Let it bleed anew, perforate it

Nib it, tuck it, go on…

Let that pain sting

Is it as fresh as the cologne?

Is it more immediate?

More urgent?

How does it stir you?

Because you are bleeding, huh?

                  IX

That pain is the bleeding poem

Because it bleeds, it heals

Because it heals, it shields

Because it shields, it shrills

Because it shrills, it stills

Bleeding poem is what I write

Bleeding poem is what I parade to fight.

C) Lorot Salem 2011