Christopher Bernard

This Time of Year

This time of year,
desire breaks out like a stinking rash,
my ego melts like a rod of pig iron,
the air is poisoned with a sweetness,
I know no rest, the air cuts like glass,
I go stupid and crazy, my loins are on fire.
I hate it, I despise it, I loathe it, I detest it,
and yet I am filled with it, with implacable . . .

This time of year,
my groin and my hands become intimate friends,
my brain is a bonfire, my heart is a tramp,
I pace my apartment, I stalk the streets,
I fall in love with every woman I meet.
I hate it, I despise it, I loathe it, I detest it,
and yet I am filled with it, with implacable . . .

This time of year,
every lover I ever had
slinks through my mind with my name on her lips,
she smiles and she scorns with sadistic calm,
she scalds my ego and wilts my prick
with acid eyes and laughs me sick.
I hate it, I despise it, I loathe it, I detest it,
and yet I am filled with it, with implacable . . .

This time of year,
I am in love with life and I wish I were dead,
the roses are wet from the knives in my heart,
I lash and I rage at the receding dark,
I roll in torment in my lonely bed.
I hate it, I despise it, I loathe it, I detest it,
and yet I am filled with it, with implacable . . .

_____

Christopher Bernard is a founding member 
of Caveat Lector. He is author of the novel 
A Spy in the Ruins as well as plays, short fiction, 
essays, and several chapbooks of prose and poetry.

Christopher Bernard

The Trembling Image

“Neda! Neda!” he called.
“Don’t be afraid! Neda!”

The trembling image on the computer screen
like water in the palm of your hand.

The knees crooked slightly,
the white athletic shoes
parted,
the rust-red patch on the asphalt.

Circling, the image spiraled in
to the vulnerable head,
the face, pale, paling,
and the eyes
caught it,
watching

the camera,
the image on the computer screen,
trembling,

the eyes.

Then the line of blood from the mouth,
a finger down her cheek,
then the black spider
that clasped her face.

The voice fading,
“Don’t be afraid,
Neda! Neda!”

“I’m burning…”

The hand over the heart,
holding it, barely,
as it fled
back to the stone
and the wind.

. . .

Oh where is the hand
that pulled your beauty
back into darkness
before your time
on the harsh and generous earth?
A young man’s hand
was it, maybe, 
where he stood on the street,
scared and proud,
desperate to prove himself~
sweaty, too quick
to raise his weapon
and aim at the heart
of a woman stepping from a car~

is it too bitter to think
a hand that might
have loved you?

In memory of Neda Agha-Soltan, who was 
killed on her way to a demonstration in Tehran
in protest of the Iranian presidential election.