Poem 094: Rot Poem by Samer Madbak

There is no distant bloom,
No other turf
Beyond those swollen eyes,
No rosy womb,
The truth is: I am stranded
In this bony guise
I don my past
My primal gloom
And ride the rancid surf
Branded
As a lonely seeker
On the ocean vast,
Tracing meeker
Dimmer skies
For a starry boom…
We tarry for evermore
In this tedious trance
On that waxen shore
Slithering into aurum
Slipping into a pebbly roar
And a lightless dance
In perfect decorum!
Disdaining any likely green
Any credible flower
Slighting any other stance
Than my moving like a leaden shade
Unseen
Thorough some fenny glade
Some rotten bower…
I brandish my disgrace
And scour
For a crumb of misery
Among those vain soliloquies
This empty space,
Questing my senses
And my colloquies…
No, no! There are no wavering lulls
B’yond those pretenses
The truth is: I remain a pendency
In this static flare,
I spin the air
And choose to nestle
In a bay of skulls
Upon a tarry sea
A tired vessel
I flounder
In a diabolic whizz
Towards a cemetery
Of hulls,
I anchor to fulfill
My obsequies,
To founder
In a deathlike chill
A far profounder
Stagnancy
A sounder
Dormancy
A deeper still!


Adelaide
November 4th 1992