Kit Kelen #1133 - in Tanah Toraja (possible book of mother addition)

1133

in Tanah Toraja

(possible additional piece for a book of mother)

the dead are different

but we should never single them out

they’re family after all

they wince when we’ve got it wrong

they’re jealous

we’re keeping them in the home

let’s say they’ve slept badly

just say

oh my aching itch you hear them

too long in the ground

teeth out

thin as stretch

and nearly motionless

that’s how they’ve stopped the world

we whisper up to please

say kiss

we call them homes

we say it’s skin

we give them some more exhumation

it’s for the memories they’re here

a kind of a karaoke

home’s like this

a nightmare weight

the dead weigh less each day

although they never fly away

from the judgement seat they frown

and pointlessly, some say

cigarette

perhaps a meal

the dead don’t each much

they drink slow

seem intent but troubled

you won’t torture them

with truth or fact

the dead are all over us

with their grubby DNA

see them gathered on the veranda

they can be quite a crowd

the dead are different?

but they disagree

read the rictus

their opinions stand

no one was ever more stubborn than them

there’s a light shone in to show

of course they’re more than us

they come from and they go to forever

nothing sudden in this

long way to the afterworld

but this is the way

after all

a wash

then fresh linen

take a turn around the town

till we can afford some cattle to slaughter

actually there’s a freezer full

and a bamboo pipe of blood

slit throats

set the chooks alight

they are an expensive hobby

we’re still paying for the dead years later

the first came down the stairs from a cloud

think of it

something to look forward to

and take your pills as well

you could be a stone

in the end

see how different the dead?

we are the damage they do

it’s we who must move on