The Craft of the Knife (from "The Island")

 
for many years
he was relentless
meticulous in the
craft of the knife
carving out letters
on pieces of wood
that the river carried
after every storm
he carved the messages
for no one and yet
he let the river
take them back to
somewhere he wished
for in jest perhaps and so
he becomes weary
and weary
with the knife
yet the craft of
the knife
gave him the skill of
the fork
like the tongue
of a viper or the
fake medals of
the Colonel
which he kept, practised
expertly repeating like
a prayer
a meditation by
a monk of
forged ordination
about the foregone years of
glory that never
suffering that never
really begone
but continued to
chatter to
his ego where
the fork taught him
the gift of forgetting, of
the tautology of denial, a
religion for sociopaths:
forgive them for they know not what they do
oh but he knew
not once and
for many years
he was relentless
meticulous in the
craft of the knife