Chants

Let us become acquainted with the songs of the ancients.

Their poetry was sweet – hard – fierce in the mouth,

Meant for the mouth, meant for crying out,

Meant for a torch-blazing road through the island's hills,

Meant for the humming, thick-odored halls,

The king at top with his bristling beard, his rugs and throne

And beggars at bottom, scraping together the

Scraps of song, twisting the metals of word and story

To necklaces for Jenny at home;

Meant for one lover, dripping with myrrh, as she’ll name it,

Laughing, singing liquid songs through the knothole,

Audacious, unshameable,

Known in the harem as Solomon’s Dark One,

Washed and drenched in the words of her love;

Meant for the little one, stool-perched, watching his father with blazing eyes,

As Da hums the old song, conjuring rhymes to try and do justice

To the way the muck sucked at your feet and the sound

Of the spiked metal jungle of battle-words

Banged on the shields of the enemy,

Bursting like blood from the haunch

Now roasting at fire.

Let us write poems 

Of meat and sex,

Of water and spears,

Songs for lovers and children,

Beggars and kings;

Let us become reacquainted

With the ancient things.