Search Results for: david russell

Discourse He was the foam on the backwash of conversation, Repelled by the safety-pier; Seeming to crave a knife to answer The upward wave-choppings, He felt as if there were an invisible plastic partition Segmenting the round, globular flatness Of all within his view – A tank, cramping and inflexible To cramp that perfect essence.   Blocks and straight lines […]

Communication   He handled his language as he fried his eggs: There was tension between the respective softnesses Of his egg and the cooking fat – Dependent on extreme alternation of heat and cold, Confinement in shell melting out of shape   Solid outside the skin flesh, fluid only within, Only under the flame Pricks the shape in itself, the […]

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 […]

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, […]

With Respect to the Whale Oh, man – foul carnivore! Gorging beyond all need for sustenance, Gorging beyond even your body’s bounds! And is this a fixation on your prey, A lust for prey-communion? Willing your own, final annihilation By turning into quarry That great, that fine, that more than any beast; Sea-mammal – in its form a synthesis of […]

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 […]

Before the Horoscope   Nine planets juggle me on cusps And boil flood-chemistry to speed me. Will blows from Geminian ash, Sinks through quicksilver.   Out-sensed, earth and fire are lit; Or fears invert that gaunt imminence Thrust all into the gulf.   Beyond sear fuller flames – Tempered, reserved, Approved as solid, then abhorred As dark absorption in one […]

Scorpion I touched a scorpion; it struck. It was my fault; I had been warned – But for one split second Its beauty-fascination wrenched me From reason’s ice.   I don’t think anyone could find a scorpion ugly, They shine too.   Writhing and smarting from the sting I lashed out, struck on something soft I could not see.   […]

Panic   A search for some trivial object in the midst of disordered furniture Seized upon just at that moment, giving birth to consternation   Repulsion from travelling delayed by this selection; Travelling light, splitting energy-wholes into petty onenesses –   At one with invisibility   Use the fuel of panic to build up heat in an overcrowded room Breath […]