ALIVE...! by Herbert Kearney

Herbert Kearney hails from Cork, Ireland. He is a poet and artist. He makes bone carvings, and fills large canvases with amazing shapes of color, and creates massive sculptures. In New Orleans, where he lives, Kearney is well-known for his work with performance artist Andrea Garland, and inscribing crytpographic Haiku on live nudes. Kearney's paintings, sculpture and poetry are famously celebrated in New Orleans and internationally.

 

ALIVE. . . !

So now,
               it is True...
                                I am dead...!

And whose truth anyway?
I guess this realization gives me the strength to
live in spite of myself...
All this strum 'und drungen' of N O L A has exhausted me.
...And now back again to the continuous umbilical
of history corrected by poetry
In these desperate times of plenty... we go back
to the earliest thought, the strongest emotion
The nightmares and daymares all!
...Poetry you have deserted me... Poetry you have betrayed me...
Beauty I disdain of you... you hurt my eyes much,
The muses are bemused within me,
...And I didn't go back to collect the dead!
I see them blue turning green... constantly floating
around in my head
Constantly, words shaping in their soundless mouths
And eyes with longing hurt of not knowing why?
...And I am guilty of not knowing why?
I am guilty of no foresight,
"We'll be back in a few days [we thought]
to clean the gardens!..." with no idea
of the floating dead that were to stay behind
and remain in my head.
Though my long sentenced sins are well
acquainted with the other side... the sheer volume
of spiritual energy has broken through my leathery skin
plasmatizing the numb soul within
So with this realization of being the living dead
"A self-proclaimed zombie from toe to head..."
I can honestly say
that I am alive for today
I didn't come back for the living
I came back for the Dead
You see we never really left
We are only sleeping