Persepolis Is

by Stan Galloway

Persepolis is
distant.
Memories and ghosts
dancing through illusive gates
vie like lions for substance
outside storybooks and annals
outside chants in awkward tongues
outside tourist propaganda
surviving inside the body
pulsing in cells
that almost remember
Indo-European syllables
in the bongo of the blood.

A marble remnant of id
drums in capillary walls
inarticulate as bulls
breathing
beneath the anvil and stirrup
beneath aspiration
beneath recognition
homeless
in teak and cedar
in limestone dust
in every dreamed face.

Not so distant
in space or time
is Persian blood
empire of bone.