The Dying of Baal

The Dying of Baal

In ancient Syria it was said

if the paid mourners did not wail

and play their flutes,

the fire snake of grief,

the demon Bhalak, would stir

and scorch the bereft

from the inside out.

I bury one hand in the dirt.

With the other I throw dust

over my head. I am barefoot.

I do not eat.  My bloodless hair

I pluck and tear: Syria is dead

and all the professional

mourners have fled.

Oh Syria! With the god of Storm

and Dew now thunder-mute

in Homs, Aleppo, Damascus and Palmyra,

without the rip of shirt and flesh,

un-memoried, the thousand silences,

thick and slow, stand on the banks

of the Orontes, a living mist,

wordless as the dead.

I thrust one hand into my chest.

With the other I scratch black scars

in a lost language of Body:

some, any, every, no.

The earth burns my feet.

My blistered tongue swells

with seared and serpent breath. 

The Dying of Baal was first published by Bird’s Thumb in 2018 at http://birdsthumb.org/vol5-3-oct18