Issue 7

June 2001

David Pollard

David Pollard read literature and philosophy at the University of Sussex. His doctoral thesis, a Heideggarian treatment of the poetry of John Keats, has been published as The Poetry of Keats: Language and Experience. He has produced a Concordance to the Harvard edition of the Keats Letters. He has also published articles in the field of philosophy and literature. A novel, 'Nietzsche's Footfalls' is due out this year. His research interests are in Continental philosophy, literature and criticism.

 

All work © David Pollard

 
Wer wischt dies Blut von uns ab?

how
   without it
      were those shadows thrown
how if not
   were they left
     benighted
         without even stars

          with them
armed with them
   shining
      through
    the telling of

their deaths
   and through
   his death
      which starred them
through them
   his death pangs tolled there
      seminating stars and sandgrains
         into
    obscenity
   into a requiem aeternam deo
       nurtured and growing       
   into loss of prayer

only madmen see the death of gods
   in their creation
      and can mouth
      can mother it
speaking final words
   before beginnings
      for each new god must learn
      for we must learn
         the burden of creation

for that gods kadish
   is inverted loss
      for that one shadowed son
   that he demanded
      bound
      unflowered
      blown 
    echoes
      in those other nights
      petalled in loss
      blown backward into
         that first sacrifice of breath
      unwound unswaddled
unburied down
the spiral down
the winding path

 

Untitled

falling
like the son
                                        fallen
   a way
      strung out
          wingward skyward
           over a hush of corn

turning
   bloodied by words
      below which
         earth banks up against itself darkening
even the other god
   that is mine
      that I have mined and
         leaches
            like language
                                            found
 away
                                            foundered
 leaving nothing
 
 
 
for you see he didn't grow old

through
the veil of a mother's tears
through
the veil of the shadow of
   that cry so awesomely allowed which
      echoing already
      and still echoing then
         reverberates around
      that one lost word
         in that repeated moment
         once again unheard
across our worlds
   plunging out of delicate membranes and
      dividing
         tree and
            burning
            ashes
            and rising
            fire
            and smoking
            words
            now again down
            from babel
            broken
            disarticulate
         split beyond possibles

how  
   in embalmed darkness
      could she wash and comb
      and close his souls
how
   could her fingers join
      his glistening palms
         and touch such different flesh
   without that one word falling
      from her eyes
   without the bird
      in streaks of holy metal
         falling
       
the dust of that dark sun
unique unspeakable
   carpets horizons
       announcing loss of origin as
         in that torture generation
            twists out of generations
         leaving her hurtled in echoes
              in that touch of dust
                 untouchable
   and deseminate
       face to face with that
          abomination of son's blood
             which in forgiveness could
                and even if
            she dare not

for them
   life turns in locks of air
  and of so many who
      will not turn grey and
          at the entry of whose final dwelling
              the key of breath has turned

and
   and
      and from that grail
         we also saw them drink
            at Cana
         mother's blood
         made tears