Underwater Ballet In the wistful – drowning; All dreamers hold their breath; Floating balloon Rests full in blister world before the land. Slippery between skin and scales, Drawn throbbing from the gilled; Great tuna from crustaceans postulated, Anemones new-boned; Parallel concert writhe Curls double joints. Flippers of androgyny Erected supple Thighs hoisted angular Lungs ultra-blown; Last […]
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Carnival That peacock opulence, Swarming on strutting grime; That massed ecstasy, squeezing itself, Short-breathed, near suffocation; That sound-abandonment, seeming to plunge To deafness’s peace; Yet keeping those maimed faculties alive, Ever denying their last fulfilment. Maybe it’s only I and it, I, starting in the middle And it, commensurate with my idea Of my own size? Maybe I […]
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Alchemist Sing, earth-captured starlight Purest light to touch the earth Purest light to flow through day and night To flood our sense-zone; Sing through my blinking tubes and phials, All potions, never poured; Yet all suffused in afterthought. My litmus-jewels, made one by burning faces, turning suns, That charred the fixed eye, the rooted touch. Bodies I gel, not cruelly […]
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Space Capsule Volunteer The final pull of severance will magnify you The downward controls make you equal to the general gravitation You are higher than the air, and so you leave, You are bigger than the air, and so you breathe Caught in a feeling circle Knowing measurements for what they are Your particles arrested Your museum […]
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Earthquake What happened? There was a fault. What’s a fault? It’s when one piece of the earth juts above another. Why does that happen? Because the explosion down below Goes on forever. But was that fault anybody’s? It was the earth’s; it’s beyond us. The seething energy-city, ever greedy to accelerate. Did its makers long to sharpen that fault, […]
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Clouds In chroniclers’ minds Past wars all went full circle Making great urban filth destroy itself So that the finest flowers and shrubs Could sprout at random. And birds, in exultation Or happy in their ignorance Made rills of melody Now man had passed them by. But now, with ice and poison For one full year enthralled, embalmed. […]
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Antarctic Depths An ice-roofed stratosphere, clear liquid space And nerve-legged spiders Crack fans of anchor ice To mend all seals Here it is coddled by the final killer, Will it be toppled by comfort’s rays?
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Work out of Progress I suppose it must all go on indefinitely – Just when I thought it had all been played out, All become superfluous. I am at the stage of universal discarding; I suppose that many people see, through several decades, What I pushed aside in a matter of months. Discarding is basic to life: […]
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Immortality You carried your vengeance beyond decease – Slowed down the pyre’s cleansing, Slowed down the soil’s, the water’s warmth, Left total body change open to the senses – Pursued your cause beyond its effects, Stepped out beyond all examples, Further than all reflections, Forestalled all worth – All kindred, all common links – Seeking to frame a cleansing, […]
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Speakfeel Razor branches, pointed-forked roots stretch centrifugal jabs against middle surface Sources swallowed in the lightless void Cancelled fugitives incubated in pure motion, rejecting sides, all allowed Only restored through leaves and petals avid for translucency Shining to meet the beak and proboscis, clumsy, assured Seaweed swelters for the dark answer, shimmering clasps from knuckle-protectors, Ricocheting nadir curls of […]
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