Tag: speculum

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 […]

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 […]

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?    

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The Musician’s Testament “Being a living legend is such a precarious livelihood. What a ducking of responsibility!” (John Cale) “Success means being worried about everything else except money” (Johnny Cash) I’m putting down this last eyewitness account leading up to zero hour because all the registers have gone into the red; everything’s going to blow. If I am stopped in […]

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 […]

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 […]