Featuring Healing Verse Germantown community poetry.
Philadelphia Soulcry
Before the sound of a
Piercing bullet tore through
The upper reaches of the atmosphere scattering
All of the dark matter across
The universe I did believe
That everyone was wonderful
Once.
In that late night
Philadelphia soulcry my eyes
Turned a fish belly white.
And I knew then and there
That you cannot return to certain
Sites, even in the dark haze
Of a memory
While this is happening to you,
You are also happening.
To mourn is a dynamic and constructive ritual
Of passing a portal into the threshold of
No undoing
Of unfinished business
Of hissing winds and sour downpours
When we arrive there,
do the cosmos wink at us in the face?
I imagine so.
Even for those who have died too soon or lived too long.
I imagine the terrain is warm and lush.
I imagine a hand may stretch across
An open ocean to accompany you through
The ether into a newness untouched
I imagine it is like a dream full to the brim
Of crisp uncertainty
Memorialized in memory
Revolving back and forth across the edge of our eyelids
Those of us earthbound weep, howl, laugh,
Implode from the guts up, touch other flesh desperately,
Sleep never again unless with only one eye open
All of us feverishly wrapped inside the melancholy glee of grief
Evolving…
