H
e a r t S o n s & H e a r t D a u g h t e r s of A l l e n G i n s
b e r g
N
a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 : A r c h i
v e s E d i t i o n
JIM COHN
Shekhina
Only for a
while do we warm ourselves
With flowers
& bluebirds & grieving.
Shekhina, you are the
midwife of illness
& weddings & all that is sparks & pregnant
& all that is elbows & kisses & semen.
You accompany
exile’s wretched longing
To
consummate the soul’s deep-plum sunken glee.
You are all
that is lightheadedness & insomnia
& that which is missing & that which reveals
Wherever we
were, whatever planet.
Your voice is
that of a sick person,
A dried-up sea,
the dark furniture of sighs,
The melancholy
elegance of rusted piers
& light which is always changing, always fleeting,
The sun that
rakes the sidewalk in geometries
Of impossibly
thin shadows
That
glide
into the orange dusk,
Into the inner
chambers & inner sanctums
Winged &
nude & beyond the remoteness of
The
iron shouting of the world.
In the vagina
of centuries,
Your body is an
alphabet of blood
& quarantines & testicles & pent-up sobs,
Candles &
thick milk, the bread of thighs,
The alabaster
smell of humility, ribs,
Black
lightning, the hooves of silence concealed
Within
the concealed of the concealed within.
It is you who carry us to the sapphire mountains,
You
whose feet go down to death.
Nowhere on
earth is void of your gown of erections.
You are the
hours & weeks yoked to honey & bandages,
The
elegance of hovels, the mansions of poverty.
When cities
tremble with rain, it is you speaking—
Filling that
impossible distance between solitude’s
Round flaming
window of amorous throbbing,
Its ladders
& palaces that float by & arms of pain
& realms of repentance & realms of copulation.
Abrupt, you
lean against the roots of air
As we choose
something personal,
Something mutual,
something indescribable,
& opening to every crevice, every uncharted beloved
That falls
through the skin
Of
the violet tides of our frenzied nothingness.
In the wet
green rhythm at the heart of absence,
It is you who
knows the violence that comes
To each life,
who touches us
When we wished
to die, when we wanted to live.
As we remember
the face of weeping
You are here
like a synagogue made from a dress,
Like a mother
waking up in the middle of the night
to bake a dark
creamy-brown chocolate cake.
When we lie
down in dust,
You are the
dust of premonitions
From where
begins our love over again.
18 February–18
March 1996
[Originally published in NHS 1996, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs96/index.html#27.]