CLAY RED CLAY
Published by MARGUERITE hnteves@gmail.com ©2018
ENKIDU. The warrior and his big hands walk into a cafe. His hands. Clay and water. Red clay.
He is not small. Not small man lives wild. Used to live wild. His stomach cannot take the coffee. Drinks with milk. Drinks with rivulets on hairy chin. The warrior. The warriorman walks dogs for the rich. Walks dogs much smaller, the ones he grew up with had real teeth. Hand-length. Teeth.
But the warrior and his big hands was breathed into by god-life. Made for sword and stink and blood. Made with god-breath for life to take life. Tear life like palm leaves like green bodies. In his youth were those like him unlike him. They gave him meat and let him alone. Except the war. The war alone, lonely alone.
But there are new others, new others and young names, new clay. The warrior-man misunderstands the new others. War is not here. War is not on dirt-earth. The new dislike the old war-blooded men. They call taxis. They ask for help. He has never asked for help. Clay is wet or dry, hot hands make good breath, breath for shaping right.
Warrior again, again. Tired and seeks the trees. The knot-trees have eyes not hands, not eyes but ears but mouths. Trees help and tie down, hold the warrior-man close like death, close like death-veils winter. Like the trees he drinks. Drinks from the watering-places. But now coffee. They laugh at him. Tree-laughter is too deep to hear. The warrior-man can hear but loud-new.
But the warrior and his big hands are not big enough. The warrior cannot flee. The man. Not warrior, new man of blue clay and brown. The man who is young and clean, clean-shaven, brown. Holds hands. The warrior is dead already. Already. He is dead once teeth is shown. No man is exempt. No animal-man is exempt. No man. Big eyes are blue.
The warrior-man has fallen. Mourn and then drink for him. With trees at the place of water. Raise big dogs, real dogs. Shape from the clay. Red clay. The clean man grins and holds big hands. Love is unlike love. Love holds breath, escape with good bodies. Move between. Youth leaves. Clean or leave alone, warlike. Write the name in big black ink, big ink. ENKIDU.