Poem – Part II (By David Russell)

Part II

Let calcium lines be shaved of moss and other growth be centered,

Re-score the patterns.

All who change and slither shall live; those who clinch all roots shall perish.

Wilful ignoring and retraction is a key to survival.

In the circle, all is death; through the lines, life is pursued.

But all life is angular, clinches segmentation.

Knowledge of angles comes from striking the circle.

So circles and lines are forever enmeshed with numbers.

 

At  each recognition of a mesh, all lines are circled upon themselves,

Obliterating all ends. For lines unthreaded are the most fragile.

 

*

 

The calendar forced its reiteration through ascent. Temples of knowledge burgeoned from its splitting and grinding; through mute fractions they massed chances, etched the transient softness. Their terraces sliced all living curves, made rise and fall all levels, gave flight to all, regurgitated all resilience from its greedy centre. But through thick masses, blindness grows. So the temples destroyed countless eyes through window-blanked chambers. For light is much; light is heavy; light must forever pare and prune. Only through the greatest fissures can it find its lines. The sacred seams can only be traced from the points of no starting. The temples are ever extended, against intention, beyond revulsion, in all private dwelling and public buildings. Their censors drag in all humanity to sustain the earth. Their iridescence, pervading all matter, draws the final sight of those fixed on transient spectacle.

Growth is the spawn of liquid and light. The resultant herbal balm must seep through all mankind – fit for a cataract but fully dispersed, straddling generations with the intersections of its thoughts.

One arrow quivered, braced by three spears, restoring omens to their source. In fronded pain the panel took a fine gauze ring of ashes for calamity’s brakes, resplendent ever – tarpaulins ripped to zero. Protective clotting – well-ignited, threadbare it blew, blitzing a fork with gold-dust tail, rending flint and obsidian down the bleached chasm – unbolstered flotsam now, all grew. The three spears grazed each other’s shafts, their points blunted by their common target – three segments lay the foundation for the great division. And there were tremors beneath the spear foundry, answering all tampering hammers.

Toiling for endless irrigation, they ditched forever. Raised once through the blowpipe, up sheer to the star-arrow, down to the space and mattock, to the chained, giant jaw – wiping all down, they smirched. Swallowing light, they downed its trail – making walls against it.

All now honed time pieces, straddling ages. The digits overlapped, to forge new histories. Endless meetings of all cultures modulated their unrepeatable renewal, the dying ever facing the new-come. Two-edged greetings levelled all tongues.

*

 

Rang scanned stench-bloated bubbles of froth from the prime springs, bursting to flap their jagged, scummy skins, belching their abrasive haze. All the sated world had elbowed off its droppings onto this littered scrubland. In times past, careless wantons had had picked all clean, laid bare and vulnerable the central purity. Now, starved in spirit of their dream-past, and loathing the elusive, they trickled it over with a callous sediment, one that covered but did not protect. Insects, the all-resilient, mated, hatched and buzzed through it all. They relished the finality of their shells, denied . . .

 

Author Bio:

David Russell was born in 1940. Resident in the UK. Writer of poetry, literary criticism, speculative fiction and romance. Main poetry collection Prickling Counterpoints (1998); poems published in online International Times. Main speculative works High Wired On (2002); Rock Bottom (2005). Translation of Spanish epic La Araucana, Amazon 2013. Romances: Self’s Blossom; Explorations; Further Explorations; Therapy Rapture; Darlene, An Ecstatic Rendezvous (all pub Extasy (Devine Destinies). Singer-songwriter/guitarist. Main CD albums Bacteria Shrapnel and Kaleidoscope Concentrate. Many tracks on You Tube.



This poem is part of the complete collection; Speculum: Collected Poetry and Prose, by David Russell.

View or Download the complete collection here in PDF format.

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