Tag: speculum

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?    

The Calendar The sun coughed, scattered itself for a split second into myriad droplets – so divided, poured itself into the central chasm, flattening it to glory, clinching the final resilience of the chasm’s rocks – that reject sediment, so newly refined. Its roughage thickened the barriers against itself. In the beginning of time was its end, finally clinched to […]

Don’t Touch!   “Don’t touch!” they cried; They really meant no harm, Had not intended To make a shaking, Jibbering apoplectic With their nagging.   “Don’t touch!”, for their interior décor Indeed was fragile and expensive – Themselves and furniture alike To them untouchable, those self-pariahs. There are no easy stages; Somebody’s lost a memory, Somebody’s taking shocks; The papers […]

Dark Dream Out came the swarms of shadow things To make their dead messages, To find their story-forms, Glinting chitin delighting, Reeding the pitches.   Down went the depths, encased and ethered, Numbing us to touch the greater.   Down went the coils of lit signs, And made the questions dark and known, And made the answers dark and known […]

Growth Before Buildings   Wood piles beneath the shallow permanent stone Firm feet upon the yielding bog Let water in – the wood’s grain will prevail through its lines Let water out – white softness will grow to draw things down   The foundations could be called organic, So people longed to analyse          to scrutinize   Trade silver mercury Sweep […]

Ever River Prime time, swallowed whole Could the universe, just once Have poured itself into a molecule So that, thereafter, Nothing could flow?   Never to suckle a broken circuit For sparking life; Never split by caesarean pangs Of primal punctures.   Black hole never thinned to liquid Boiling mud foundation pustules Turning all to gas.   All words now […]

Cremation   I’ve always believed in cremation; Flames bleach the world, unclutter living things.   Let scum survivors, grasshoppers Leave cemeteries a mess Of living impulses dismembered. Not knowing fire’s totality But sickly honouring it stunting In tortured carbon stench.   I’ve always believed in cremation Ever since I read of great skull mountains; Those potash handfuls are so clean […]

Crossword Adventurer Isn’t it great! The chessboard gone wonky, Thrust into eddies of new clusters – All-dimensional vistas. Isn’t it great to peel and pave the words, To lick their sounds, To hone the code letters with your pencil sharpener.   Happy jump from ‘right’ to ‘dream’ – City breath pause, Gurgling word-chain.   Torture, hiatus of connection; Now predator […]

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 […]

Nocturne   Small specks at night Made light of all our thoughts Which grew, in wonder, And burned the flesh that knew them And found the first thoughts, the controlled desires, the boxed fires the thrusting shields.   And spoke behind the pauses, And thought between the brain-tissues, And swarmed through infinite cells, And crowded out the millions And burned […]