Fugue Moment
I was born by a threshold of nothing,
by the bride of fire, the populous vine
probing moonlight for its bare, eternal cash.
Unless I shelter by the galleon
in the midst of horses, or ride into an ending
further, further away, a part of me
brocaded by the fruit we hung
inciting violence and quiet air,
I am pleached in fire and the night’s relentless
silver creek, a sleeping owl espaliered.
My hair is ash, stars sewn on
smoke and blue cataracts of blood.
At last I have broken
soft-footed through the suave choristers
& their queer tempo, naked petals
shaken from the wind. O bright residuum
dissolve the pale aurora, jets of bone
erupting from the smell of seed and marrow
perfect in this inconstant universe,
your grassy breath lingers in the calyx
of my hand, plantations of perennial heat.
I am starving. I billow over night, the fire’s
dark encore blown around my feet
and flung as sparks into the silent vault.
The Latter Shall Prevail
In the event of daylight
your body becomes sun, pestle sharp
dream peony
I crawl to you in russet green
my simple math
a chord kept by tender sluts
In the event of agreement
cantabile monarchs flicker abed, garden
spirals spruce
Colour to the laurel.
I blink, the winged creatures gone
upon the laurel limb
In the event of renovation
they chop down gums, sappy flesh
pale and grave
A wolf’s blue eye
possessed by human closure, bloody fur
stuck to my fingers
In the event of ecology
the enchantment of property shrieks
poppies, mere nature
Descends into decoration,
a pileup in winter, angelic weather
crenelating anonymous cathedrals
In the event of false sorrow
estranged but enchanting, cross & recross your mouth
your naked province of power
Two hands, blown sistrum
courting a seminal fancy, most valuable lover
held to the light
In the event of chestnut, oak, boredom
the dead season swells into wolves
salt, rooftops glistening
Light angled highlights fault
mysterious & private, each eclipse
equivalent to shit
In the event of technique
shards of water, obligatory guns
perfumed grace
I am happy to die for each shade of whiteness, witness
mortal lingering
in hedges, humans, horrible dogs
In the event of anticipation
empire’s lucid contour
embroiders over underworld
A tally clod by distant oxen
free fall forests
afternoon orange
In the event of conjecture
enormous hedgerows socket tomorrow
neon marrow, lunar flavour
Only wolves
golden eyes
yawl acumble snow
In the event of darkness
uncommon sirens soothsaw poetic
you say
Thumbprints calibrate night,
yon skin, lightning or carbon sky
as the latter shall prevail.
Claustrophilic Lavallière
You were too good to cry much over me.
And now I let you go. Signed, The Dwarf.
John Ashbery
I’m presuming, I know (just as winter will unite
enemies in spring, betray soporific words
left a tiny bit unhingd &, all gilt, such paroxetine
somnolence weakly ornamented—I thought
error might better pass enclosd, your coercion
somewhat sluiced by a subigated rose, an ouevre’s
brocaded recitations, garlands left dishevelled
in the fog; my foliate despair (a locket) shows
(ingenious as mind-control ordaind by queer cherubs)
a Sun King smiling radiant while drawing
unself-conscious blancs from her morphine powderd
throne, an asthenic coterie (kept glad of work!)
laying about the cruel enclosure with studied
cartouchés, eyelids clasping inlaid silver birds.
So, the reason why I right up Verse, ills aside,
and carry charmd totes inside this bird of paradox,
informants gushing tedious and jocund, is, honey,
instrumental—the republic, enamelld & reductive,
its interiors’ consigned affiliations, slops of law
and capital’s bulbous, cordial seductions
grant lip service to this beguiling inheritance
(materialist, undetermin’d, in arrears) common sense
depositary and melamine; Wallpaper faces
unletterd & besmirchd by mismated possibility
drift across the onerous couch, a city wakes bedazzld
by the birth of a gildd, stirrupd fricatrice.
The reason for this mise en scène is, you know
‘cause we live like worms) & think to like it.
©Peter Minter |
