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Continuum
(previously published in Altered Scale in the original English)
We multiply best
in open bodies
with low mass indices
swarm and flock
cluster and conjoin
in dances choreographed
by mysterious natural
forces undeciphered
faithless phenomena
but orbed ringed
swerved or hooked
collectors congestors
of congenital immunity
diplomatic border-busters
eye upon unwavering eye
one as many as
many as one collectively
as right to civilize
diversity as right
to arithmetic mutation
towards adaptation towards
conceptualization towards
definition and tradition
solidifying in constituents
of a periodic table
as yet uncompleted.
They prisoners
of a singular atomic vibration
high mass index inclined
confounded to expansion
of the straight and narrow
strive through surfaces
beyond the own layers
in the closed exoskeletons
of their own devising
matter being matter being
eye to eye too
without critical observation
nor mysterious compunction
but for degenerative
deconstruction that rubble
may build rubble
may build rubble again
each succession wired
into the value-chain
of being and non-being
that a creator may
draw strings and each and every
last one may last
beyond the great oblivion
at the end of all things.
***
Ivan Screaming Blue at the Sea
(previously published in Altered Scale in the original English)
That seething you, that Ivan beseeching, teasing rubble from random rock,
words cleft in your bones & then a pulling like worsted steel from stone,
this stressed strata, this layercake of humus, crushed shell & cartilage, & here
behind the wall—stretching desert to detritus coast along the backbone
of the once muddied now ossified earth—
in the mind a crowd still clamors (& with all that finger pointing, spitting
& pouting), the sing-song of the String Him Up or, Stand Him Down!
He who inflicted, who switched off the Perpetuum, he who burned
bodies like flat tires (you could see the smoke on the horizon for weeks),
he who sterilized for the sake of the children—
Oh you Shylock, Ivan! foaming in the surf here at the wall’s coccyx,
the sea calling you straight you into her arms & sand up the nose,
sand spitting up flies & here finally, I’m yelping over the roar,
I’m trampling the sodden debris. You can shout all you like!
Even the wind can’t hear you—
You who never squandered, who padded your shoes like nobility
& in the end, who was painted with the priest’s even breath,
as if immortality might save you from yourself…
tonight the sea whispers below the wind & the feral moon smiles
& once again, in a dimly lit outline of life—
you bend down, picking up the threads that worm in the sand,
you, Crowned King of Seaweed, Ivan screaming blue at the sea.
***
Imago
(previously published by Connotation Press in the original English)
&withintheheadwithintheheartwithintheskintherearenowishes
Alltheflavor
haslefthistongue&anythingworthhavinghasbeenburned
leavingnothingbu
tsingednerve-endingsthatmildlyhumwhenitrainsor
when
alightningstormisapproaching&inthatmomenthetossesinhisbed
wraps
hisdampsheetsaroundlikebandagespresseshislegsintohischest
untilagainthemo
mentpassestheairbecomesthin&heslipsintohispupa
waitingtoawakeni
nhisnewhardshellprayingthegodswillgranthimwings
***
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