WHAT THE BONES SAID

“Ezekiel connected them dry bones” ~ Gospel Song

Plates shift under the table.
A crack in the mountains
and the cracking of trees—
and them bones shall rise again,
chanting:

Dies iræ! Dies illa!
Solvet sæclum in favilla:
Teste David cum Sibylla!

And so it goes and comes
and goes down into Egypt,
down into Gehennom,
down into the dreams
of dreamers sleeping
on the graves of midnight

in the cold, cold winter
of Mother Russia.

Selah

FANTASIA

 “He speaks by dreams and visions…in the night.” (Job 33:15)

A face, a name, scratched in shards of glass
scattered among lost teddy bears and doll-heads
floating on the floors of distant seas.

Midnight is the hour of fantasias and mirrors,
wherein we see the face of he who stands behind us,
unseen except in mirrors of midnight.

Unknown, except by those
who presume not to know or see
what is unseen, unknowable, unspeakable:

The unknown Knower; the unmoved Mover;
the unspeakable word spoken by the unseen mouth
and whispered in the ears of unseen sleeping men at midnight.

But not one cares to listen, hear, to understand the word
scratched in broken glass scattered on the floors
of vacant seas among the pearls and eyes

of what once were gods.

LINES IN THE SAND

Do you see what I see?
Do you hear what I hear?

Bleeding eyes?
Whimpering stones?

A silence
where our two skins meet?

A separation
between our sleep,
the width of a ten foot pole?

Or slippery eels
poking through the wall
between our end
and our beginning,

between the inhale and the exhale
of a stranger coming up behind us?

I cannot see what you see.
I cannot hear what you hear.
Neither broken dish
nor birthday wish.

Neither cockle shells
nor silver bells,

nor all our days
in a row.

THE TIDES

There is power in the left toe,
not unlike an orgasm
or a sneeze.

Or being struck by lightening
on the beach at Venice
while pulling down our pants.
for a brief interlude
followed by a shortness of breath.

The mermaids are singing out at sea,
the bees are drowning in their honey;
old men hide in imaginary caves
to draw pictographs on each other’s dirty faces.

Farther out at sea, the mermaids trade embraces
while we, lying on the shore,
brush the sand from each other’s thighs
while listening to the moon’s laments,

the mermaids’ sighs.

JAI KALIMA!

There is nothing.

Nothing to say.
Nothing to hear.
Nothing to write.
Nothing to read.

Everywhere, nothing.

Nothing to the right.
Nothing to the left.
Nothing above.
Nothing below.

Nothing.

We (I mean you and I)
are saturated with it.
Inundated with it.
Eradicated by it.

Those with ears, listen!
Those with eyes, look!

I tell you this
in memory of our mothers:

There is nothing to hear.
Nothing to see.

Not even you.
Not even me.

(Just douse the fire
before you leave.)


L.G. (Larry) Corey has appeared in Chaffey Review, YAY! L.A., Evergreen Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Midstream, Jewcy, Choice, The Critic, and now, Empty Sink Publishing. He lives with his pit bulls and cats in a small mountain community 7,000 feet above sea level in the San Bernardino Mountains of SoCal. Larry turned 80 years old last November 13th.