Tuesday, September 08, 2015

Gregory Djanikian: Dark Wings

Now is the time to say
something for the animals 

felled by gunshot and broadax 
cluster bomb and bayonet

who have lain curled in their own blood 
without succor or consolation 

their flanks torn apart, 
their fibulas shattered,

the muscles of their rippled 
animal strengths untendoned, 

horses in their heavy tranquility,
dogs snuffling the marshy grass 

by river bank, by well-spring, 
the sleek, undaunted cats, the goats

meandering by olive groves 
without notion of bullet or 

impending boom of artillery, 
a hot sharp sting of pain

felt in the deepest folds 
where nothing, neither claw, nor tooth, 

nor talon, nor the brightest shoots
of light has ever reached


Gregory Djanikian, So I Will Till the Ground, 2007, Carnegie-Mellon University Press

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