POEM + AUDIO: WHEN YOU SAID YOU LOVED ME

photo by Alex Lear

when you said you loved me

 

 

what did you do with it

after you didn't anymore

after the rain of love dried

after laughs

after baths

after toast & watermelon

after cups of water in the night

after morning smiles & phone calls

 

i know what i did with mine

i have a wall of pain painted

  nigerian indigo,

  created lyrics for a howlin' wolf,

  fashioned a mask of brown sadness,

  & in a midnight hour

  buried love's corpse quietly

  watching dry eyed

  as the heart-red crypt slipped

  peacefully deep into

  the sea of my experiences

  where the brackish-green, obsidian

  sealed sepulcher shall sleep

  untroubled by resurrection attempts

 

when you said you loved me

i never thought of it in the past tense

 

what did you do with it

after you didn't anymore

 

_________________

Kalamu ya Salaam – vocals

Stephan Richter – clarinet

Wolfi Schlick – reeds

Frank Bruckner – guitar

Mathis Mayer - cello

Georg Janker - bass

Michael Heilrath - bass

Roland HH Biswurm - drums

 

 

Recorded: June 14, 1998 – "ETA Theatre" Munich, Germany

 

—kalamu ya salaam