An Execution

I’ve been tied onto this post,
knots from which there’s no escaping,
stuck in the sand just at the water’s edge.
With the tide, the water comes up to my neck,
drowning not the real intention.
The trial is exposure, suffocation is too fast.

The ground I stand on, too, was taxed
with special imposition.
Not only must I pay the final price,
but my estate must also pay
the costs of execution.
It’s an insult, what’s the cost?
A post, some rope, the watchman
preventing my release.
Now I’ll die here in this ocean
with this day’s flowing water.

In plain sight of all the ravens
but they have nowhere to land.
From their perches all around me,
they can’t move against Poseidon.
Hear their incessant cawing.
Their king’s voice above the rest:

“We’ll see you in Valhalla,
our beloved fallen comrade.
You are dead but not defeated,
this is just another gate.
We will fly there now to guide you,
guide your spirit o’er the water, but
you never would get lost,
soul connected to the light.
Our privilege to accompany
when our ministry has been thwarted.
Through our wings stretched by the flapping,
absorb the exult of release.

“Almost there now, can you smell them?
Flowers in the gardens growing,
each one planted just for you.
You’re released, now, here is your reward.”

One Word

All I can do to write these words,
I use my mouth to speak them.
To speak without these words, to use my tongue to tell you,
what I mean by all these words.
You would feel them, I would taste you
on my lips, my mouth, my tongue, and you would scream them.
I would speak them.
I would bring to you the taste that we can share
inside my mouth, these words you read, you screamed, you felt inside you.
Screamed them to me, words you tasted with me.
I would speak to you without my words,
these words inside you with my mouth, my lips, my tongue,
all the things that I would tell you with them.

As you screamed, I saw your teeth,
your teeth are sharp, and I’m enchanted by them.
Offered up for your consumption, pray that you would eat me.
Take me to your lips, your mouth, your tongue that you would taste me.
Eat me, love me, speak your words around me, oh, my darling!
Bring to me the taste inside your mouth,
the taste of your words, share them with me.
We will taste them, eat them, scream them, speak them, feel them.
Tell these things without your words, but with your mouth and tongue and lips, and
I will scream inside you.

One word, one word, would I speak it?
Would you hear it?
Now we speak with all these words,
with mouth and tongue we taste them, eat them, scream them, speak them.
One word, that one word that we would taste and scream and speak and feel and eat and hear.