by Askia Nasir Bilal

Its Words are ten stone slabs in the bosom piece

Air

mountain pegs holding my celestial body in place

coral reef, beached whale bones

bleached pale

poems can’t touch the place its page reached
“Read!”

was the Word that squeezed free his rib cage

The seed rooted and breathed branches across ages

planted an oasis in the desert-chested

took its seat in the minds of peasants to sages

who halt and fall at all corners of earth

their foreheads transformed to lanterns

Its Words are not the spells of a soothsayer

not a madman poet who sought profit

they are Lanterns from on High

cast into our clay frames where they hang shimmering

meteors passing through our frozen membranes

floodlights to consciousness

Its Majestic Speech

would make skies weep and bow

a lightning bolt to the boulder-breasted
God Willing

to those who ingest its message

it gives their spines polished posture

God Willing

those whose heart-tongues host its words

their clay forms are molded into noble vessels

God Willing

It draws the mirage out of mankind

strikes the living dead and mends severed body-hearts

Its Letters — ladders leading to higher selves

God Willing

“Read!” was the Word that made his rib cage its throne

Nor was he known as a liar

A Warning-harbinger, Glad tidings

Its passages lead passengers to meaning

It vibrates through our barren vessels until

we are shattered whole

“Taught man what he knew not”

like stones thrown at our glasshouse false selves

showing an Opening to True Purpose.