***
Jerusalem - no other word
Tears at the world like this
Me, I'm alone with my longing
And the night's wearing thin
A thread of dawn
Appears
Angels take
The guise of demons
The smouldering shag
In my pipe
I tamp
With my hand
Scraps of me
Fall with the ashes
Of my nocturnal smoke
Scraps of you
And the dead and the shadows
My paradise
A no-man's land
Which night birds
Visit
I'm alone with you
Here
Is nowhere
Is
Jerusalem
Jerusalem
I carry
Like burning flesh
Wherever
I am
And nothing else is
Anything, anywhere
And since nowhere is here
Here
Is nowhere
Save the sound
Of your troubled sleep
In the sleepless memory
Of a stone
Who finds himself
An exile
Anywhere
Save in your infinite
Fractions
Which I
Take up like pebbles
To build my house
In deserts and dwellings
Abandoned
Renamed
Jerusalem
And gravitating
Towards
Your ghosts
Which are
The only
Living things
Within my ruined soul
I am no longer
Anything
Save the pain of your beauty
Made up of scars and layers
Of journeys
Towards
This impossible home
I cannot piece you together
Even though
I am lost in you
Lost to anything else
Knowing you
And you alone
Yet, I fear
To speak of you
For you make my languages
Mingle
I settled in a neutral tongue
Seeking to make it
Resemble you
Without burning my lips
Without burning my heart
Without raising the sceptre
Of treason
But I am becoming
Like you
And I find myself
All divided
Within my heart
There's a wall
And it's you
You
You
And you again
There's no way to escape
And there's no way to be here
No way to love, no way to hate
But I am torn
To pieces
And I cannot piece you together
Beyond mere love Jerusalem
Eats up my liver
And every possible me
As if a thousand lives
Were not enough to consume
This shadow cast
By you
My ancient
Eternal
Soul of souls
This home of which I am
A pillar
And a stone cast away
Lightly
Because I am, by God
Nothing
But you, Jerusalem
To my last breath
I am
The instrument
Of your song
I have travelled the seas
And the oceans
And I have never once left you
I am
By the umbilical cord
Of blood and soul
Tied to you
Never
For one day
Have my joy and my pain
Not dwelled under your roof
And been as guests, passing strangers
Even in the arms
Of a lover
Anywhere
In this world
Save in your tombs and temples
As they bleed into each other
The worlds' torments, pain
Upon pain
You
Could have been a garden
And man's true
Paradise
Ah, little is the step
From the skies to the abyss
As the echoes of 'Be'
Break their vessels
To make their way through the darkness
In search of the all-embracing 'Is'
I shall be buried
In the sea
I shall be eaten
By sharks
Of the pieces of flesh and bone
That were once called
By a man's name
Nothing shall be left
Save the dust and water
That is I
That is you
These
Shall be one
And forever
Feed each other's
Memory
To be called
In Truth
Jerusalem
Forever
And all time
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