Poetry

By

Thomas Ziemer

                            Procession

   these hands shall be opened, this ancient body

                  draped in opaque curtains

               these sacred bones, scattered

                 amongst the filthy pipelines

     these shells shall submerge the sand

                  in shards of diamonds

      that beam like the star in the center

                of the fluorescent night

        that glisten like a water nymph

           swimming into the outline

                of the silver skylight

         which trembles slightly right

     beneath the incandescent figures

                 that glide divine

       beneath the faded white lights

  as the gates swing shut, as the songbirds

            withdraw into the shadows

   the images of executioners are posted

        beside the pillars in the garden

         the chants of the survivors echo

      against the statues in the cemetery

         the throngs of soldiers march

           alongside the crystal casket

   laden with translucent jewels shimmering

                exquisitely against the

                 supernatural silence

                   of the crimson sky

                                     Nod

                          For Jim Carroll

          a bed of roses opens its cradle of a hand

         and sings to me in its soft foreign tongue

   cooing and calling out, bent under breath of wind,

                 the willows rustling at the bend,

                 the shudders of the streetlights

              the cruel utterances of the gutters

                   all call out to me in the night

                   I long for it like the last lick

               of a finger-candle at lunch time

                   my knuckles drawn tight

                       over the parchment

       my love lies within a dream of moonlight

       a globe of glass, rooted in hoary silence

           our mortal coil poised and pinched

                              along the line

Thomas Ziemer

Thomas Ziemer is a young American poet who feels a strong kinship with the suffering and the downtrodden. His favorite poets are Allen Ginsberg, Walt Whitman, and Philip Lamantia.