gershon hepner - lazarus

Each sentence is a susurrus
that softly from the grave he whispers.
Analeptic, Lazarus
is sermonizing during Vespers.
His eyes are bloodshot and his skin
is mottled black on parchment beige;
his mouth curls in a gruesome grin
as words emerge, a cold cortège.
“Don’t speak while eating, ” he was taught,
but not “Do not speak after dying, ”
and gives his posthumous report
denying death which he’s defying.

He’s desperate to tell us all
about the place where none but he
has been, a dead man in a pall
which muffles his obscurity.
He tries to speak the words forbidden
to those who breathe while hearts still beat,
although we see the darkness hidden
within his wordless winding sheet.
Believing it may be allowed
to publicize what graves would hide
he is mistaken: death is proud,
permitting no one to confide
his vision of the other side
once tombs are shut and mortals die,
and therefore, with his tongue untied,
his susurri appear to lie.

4/29/97,5/22/07

gershon hepner

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lazarus-2/