Poetry

sappho

by MK Kuol

                                   there is a slim song
howling in the throat
                                   of these northern winds
a song about inebriated men
                                   inebriated men
who   in the serenity night offers
wage war against their own shadows
while singing with tongues
borrowed from desecrated dead

with the wilting reputation
of the dissentient poet i occasionally am
i beseech gods to un-alphabetize me
in the language of flowers
                                   to shed off this fragility
that un-costumes every soul that strays
into this sphere & costumes on clay

i drift into a hypnagogic hallucination
where
                                   i am the slim song
howling in the throat
of northern winds   i try to toothpick,
with a rusted dignity
                my delectable melody stuck
between the teeth of drunken slurs
of these inebriated men bleeding pale rainbows
from wounds inflicted on them
                by their own un-submissive shadows
a staircase   strung with the smoky skulls
of ancient sages   vaults out of my eyes
                                                                into a void
                acloud with milky mist
a dove-eyed   falcon-faced angel
hails out of the lean air   a sealed scroll
in one hand   a bronzy trumpet in the other
i launch myself at him
three days & three nights   wrestle him
screaming & screaaming & screaaaming
until my voice wore out
                                   i will not let you go except
                                   you bless me
i will not let you go except you dip me deep
into the saltwater
of immortality you dipped sappho into
except like sappho   your blessedness
                                   etches me
with scraps of bone-bare ballads
                                   into eternal un-forgetfulness

dead-weary
he   the dove-eyed   falcon-faced angel
plucks a blood-flamed star
from the sky’s bosom
presses it against his feathered cheeks
an esoteric epic   inscribed in faint hieroglyphics
on a gigantic tilapia scale   un-scrolled from his fingers
i hold the esoteric epic to the light until it morphs
into a gold-streaked silver key
                                   hands me the gold-streaked silver key

they of old knew   child   they of old knew
this secret   to forge yourself into forever-ness
                know the depth   know the length
know the breadth   know the width of your-own-self
reads the dim inscription on the gold-streaked silver key

i yank myself from the trance
the slim song i am burns at the altar
of self-scrutiny until all that’s left
is an elusive whisper
                                   spread beyond the reach
                                                                of any memory
the skull-stringed staircase shrinks
back into its source   my eyes

i keyhole into the cathedral of self
a dark void stretch-es before me   a calm voice
whispers   follow through   there’s always light
at the end… i follow through   shape-shifting
from time to time   the void keeps stretching
there is no end   there is no light   just i   alone
swimming & swimming & swimming
without limbs   through an ice-cold ocean of silence

dusty spider webs hanging on the roof
of this throat of mine   dead from disuse

Appeared in Issue Spring '26