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, […]
Read more
Respitoration Can there still be irrigation Now the stem’s closed, dry? Can there still be imagination – When the bottom’s gone awry – When everyone can see Through every ancient icon? In spite of everything, maybe – When light floods all opacity, As every block of granite, Basalt, obsidian Melts into a stained-glass window; When experience […]
Read more
Ritual Roots Trains: Stringing, ringing, lifting, Breathing meringues, with pores distended at the termini Contraction is needed for piercing of bars And holing of tickets. The breaking of one deadlock only Institutes another, more firm, In the hand and in the basket. More futile by far than any old bird’s weak flight Through a Church, a hall […]
Read more
Mid-Life So much happened; So much didn’t – So nice to remember; So painful to recall Now nothing is all, The power to recall Is an anaesthetic – Past strength Is pathetic. In the middle, What’s kept still here What was and is gone, What never was – All levelled. All comes to ground, abrades, That’s […]
Read more
Early to Rise In vigour, he did the splits in freedom In free vigour, he did the splits Freely, he did the splits in vigour, With vigour, he did the splits freely Vigorously, he did the free splits – He split vigorously free Between house block and office block Office and blockhouse Real bouncing squeezed inside happy reason. […]
Read more
Tangled Drawing the cross slices tramline nuggets, Sizing out torture’s cavity, Wrenching the hopeful – slashes, threads all. The anchor is split, tossed on a shroud, The elements burgeoning right. The chain is rusted, marking starfish, Shakes in a ticking melody. Calipers rented, mayhem dented, Cholesterol’s bulb fouls the maggots away; All pupae are gelled, numb triplets they […]
Read more
Complacency You had the world eat from your hand And thought you had it made To fade into your fantasies. Nobody came to put you down, And so you never rose; You smiled and sang in blindness And your wine glass sweetly flattered you. Supremely bored, And worshipping the needs that passed you by You paused, to consult […]
Read more
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 […]
Read more
Reflections First there was a God Bounded by no face, Faced by no bounds. Yet first there was a mirror (What first is first with no bounds clear?) The mirror drew the sun, Scored with its bounds the sky And drew the God a face – And drew the God to Man; So drawn, the God […]
Read more