World Without End

Here’s a poem by James Aboud which appeared in the Autumn 2003 edition of poetrymagazine.com. The poem is from his Lagahoo Poems (Peepal Tree Press, 2003).

James: A Lagahoo is a mythical Caribbean figure loosely based on the European werewolf myth. The voice in the poem is Lagahoo's. This is one of the dark Lagahoo poems, but it looks more dark in isolation.

World Without End

James Christopher Aboud
Trinidad & Tobago

O Footprint of blood at the edge of the green forest
O Medicine of mud and dead leaves
O Shadow of the ocean's manta-ray
O Will of chalk, muscle of Mora
O Orchid root that binds the mind's trajectory
O Choice of equal paths
of equal sighs
borne past the thick jugulars
O Destroyer of light, Destroyer of shape
O Storm
O Terror of eyes and the eye's claws
O Mouth forever gaping, forever sliced
O Phallus, O wind of angels and bonfires
O Final song of lust
O Lust, more dead than dead eyes
O Face of death powdered with green moss
O Hideous shape made more hideous in the night
O Violence of sun and jagged stone
O Violence of thorns and insect mandibles
O Comb of rain, black hairy cloud
O Breast pierced by iron, pierced by broken glass
O Tongue of cloud alive in the mouth
O Tongue that will not give in

O Cobweb made of wrists
O Wrists more brittle than the will
O Dark shape
O Guilt that crawls on its belly
O Guilt whose saliva seals the fist shut
O Guilt that wraps each poison berry
O Terror of night, and the soul's marrow
O Dark life
Always and ever O prison of bone

© Copyright, 1994, James Christopher Aboud

Photo: Brandie Earle