3 poems by Darrian Wesley

Words Before Dying

 

As my mother’s mother warned

of her love when I confessed,

 

gay: many have died for this.

But to bullet this body

 

bloody as good ganja does

the eye’s white would be

 

a shame. Who would write

my poems or throw my shade?

 

Pray God take the breath of our blood,

He drain its strivings

 

to be holy, leave me blue as the delta

Muddy Water’s Rock Me you hum,

 

hang me hand and foot until

I am hollow as the Lamb crying Eloi.

 

. 

After Breath

 

No, the invisible behave visibility,

onlooking the body – no longer

their shelter. Believe them two-parted

 

as a Centaur, formed in the pangs of ink.

When they ask of you, O living,

 

not to feel shame for how they have

lived, you know their prayers,

the whole pageant of imploring:

 

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.

They endeavor as you do

kneeling, eyes closed, to see

 

those flames of fire, to know

the beauty of Christ. But for the dead, yes,

there is an air of arrogance

 

to believe they could reattach

themselves to a place among you, close

as the white of your eye’s. Believe them.

.

.

 

Hymn

 

Learn me like your rifle

soldier, before our kingdom

 

begins again to suffer

violence or I shoot you

 

to the ground like the blood

your fists have broken to.

 

Yes, and I need you

lover of my flesh

 

and sometimes the fear

fleshing my love,

 

as the tears I pray

in silence with to my god

 

while I strive to sleep,

the last ritual of healing.

.

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