Alone, I stand between two mirrors,
enamored of twin reflections. The eyes behind me
haunt me, and the eyes before me, sunken lights
in atrophy, countenance in rebuke. I sing
with narrow throat, not warbling like a bird,
in senseless gaiety, but with a tongue
that lacks all acumen: cacophonous gutturals
patinate the glass with brief white mist
and wanly die in dull reverberation.
I love not God nor any counting angel,
insidious perpetrators of imposition,
fallacious criminals, cosmic voyeurs.
The wings of fountains are more apt to flight
than fictive seraphic vans, such stone more sweet
than manna from hallucinated heaven.
Certainly one has heard the bard of Erin
promulgate that Arcady is dead,
such I affirm, and asseverate in grief,
though I would wantonly resuscitate
her pastoral splendor and make her evergreen.
To Hell all heavens that live in spite of man,
in spite of nature, all anemic nirvanas
where in cross legged impotence man withers
in docile imbecility. Such vacuous
substitutes for life will not sustain
a grain of what is good in man, nor may
inseminate nor vitalize his blood.
The summer rain is noisy in the gutters,
gathers in cloudy ponds and brims the fountains;
lichen weaves its mucky velvet; the worms
insinuate in gluey holes and surface,
birthed in pink health; fluttering birds sing matins;
gulls like sirens weave their dissonant cries
in shrieking tapestry; the warming stones
are black and shining. Now I hear the brine,
a thin and salty lick on the ear, a solace
and saturating constant. Come, she beckons,
in sibilant consonants, mellifluous vowels
that summon with the curls of surf, such sounds
promising one perfect consummation.
enamored of twin reflections. The eyes behind me
haunt me, and the eyes before me, sunken lights
in atrophy, countenance in rebuke. I sing
with narrow throat, not warbling like a bird,
in senseless gaiety, but with a tongue
that lacks all acumen: cacophonous gutturals
patinate the glass with brief white mist
and wanly die in dull reverberation.
I love not God nor any counting angel,
insidious perpetrators of imposition,
fallacious criminals, cosmic voyeurs.
The wings of fountains are more apt to flight
than fictive seraphic vans, such stone more sweet
than manna from hallucinated heaven.
Certainly one has heard the bard of Erin
promulgate that Arcady is dead,
such I affirm, and asseverate in grief,
though I would wantonly resuscitate
her pastoral splendor and make her evergreen.
To Hell all heavens that live in spite of man,
in spite of nature, all anemic nirvanas
where in cross legged impotence man withers
in docile imbecility. Such vacuous
substitutes for life will not sustain
a grain of what is good in man, nor may
inseminate nor vitalize his blood.
The summer rain is noisy in the gutters,
gathers in cloudy ponds and brims the fountains;
lichen weaves its mucky velvet; the worms
insinuate in gluey holes and surface,
birthed in pink health; fluttering birds sing matins;
gulls like sirens weave their dissonant cries
in shrieking tapestry; the warming stones
are black and shining. Now I hear the brine,
a thin and salty lick on the ear, a solace
and saturating constant. Come, she beckons,
in sibilant consonants, mellifluous vowels
that summon with the curls of surf, such sounds
promising one perfect consummation.
