slow trip above atlantis                                

            ( a prayer for my daughter, 1964 )

shipping passes daily
japanese fishermen
‘ pirates ’
swung across the bow
. . . 3 grinning men
      in blue serge
      signal . . .

cheeky & camp
on the high seas
‘ I love you. I love you. ’

our first officer / stern danish
clark gable
will not believe that the NZ govt
pays to have deer shot
thinks I am
. . . a strange one . . .
                                   I AM ! I YAM !

½ dead from self abuse / swung under
the tropic of cancer / & weird
daylight dreams
of homecoming
like a birth & a death . yeah. &
the sea . like the weight of so many
dead relations
on my breast . . . &

I am terrified of the sea.

now
all down the coast of africa
                                  africa
sometimes visible to the naked eyes !
I listen to radio
                radio
                        & I hear the tongues
                        with my nude ears
& advertisements, too, in swahili !
& the beatles too, O yes. strange songs
when all alone on a glassy sea . . . like
‘ she loves you; yeah.yeah.yeah. ’

while watching albatross come upwind
from the buried masses of the spirit

‘ under the keel 9 fathoms deep
  from the land of mist & snow ’

gliding into great dreams of future bliss
like christian souls ! . . . christian souls !

swooping in stupendous silence over the ship.
one lands . . . it is eyeing me . . .

as I grope feebly for the transistor
& avert my unsteady gaze &
cool glance
                  out
                        & over the ultramarine . . .

& I am terrified / of course !
I am terrified of the albatross.

now
all around the table mountain
I am watching the sexy , flying fishes

one day a whale . . . & thousands of miles
away
this day, my daughter is drawing her first breath
but I am pondering
lush
malcolm lowry / in his cell
‘ 9 fathoms deep ’

& the sharpeville all
blacks / & martyrs too, all

savage african queens & all
great transplanted souls
lost lovers !      skin divers !

& all darkened suns & daughters
black & comely / & all
the authentic dead / whom sartre has named

& freedom riders too / in all lost continents
of desire. ah ! jesus ! it hurts for truth !

it makes sense too / despite cowboy kate
& the stealthy ease of the first five eighth

& the dutch massacres !

now
I am terrified of those blond angels
whose swords are of the logic of words
& those dark angels too / who persist in the myth

& I am terrified of the greatest intentions
of each & every state / & I fear their acts—
for I have learned to dismiss their words . . .

& I am terrified of the white heat influence
for ‘ good ’ as much as for ‘ evil ’
from out the buried cities of the flesh

& I fear their fresh schemes & compromises
& I fear their pacts & their treaties
& I fear their dreams & their lamentations
under the guises of  ‘ love ’ . . .  yeah. & its all true
its all happening, under the ‘ blades ’ of love
& ‘ justice ’ & who can ponder for long & yet
remain, unafraid / sane / & hope to hang , to place
sweet children on the christmas tree
of this world ?

now
I’m hung up , myself, in this late blue & white day
but great / with hope
                                  nevertheless I see
a city growing
‘ just like that ’ / up
& out from the pleasant sea

a klee city
like a slow & leaning cartoon
as this day passes into night

gold for white / white for black
& this slight ship
rounds the last soft point
of the coloured cape
                                 while at my back

a sudden sunset draws its cloak too
like orange smoke
against this fitful night & those to come !
                        yeah.

a sunset draws its cloak
about this steamer

in the dark blue night.

First published in /Steal Away Boy: Selected Poems of David Mitchell/ (Auckland UP, 2010)

TITLE:
UNPUBLISHED JESUS JOCKEY FEMALE NOVELIST REGARDS nude drawing
of her SELF in arcadian pinball / ice hockey; silver $ light machine describes for
her a new chapter / LOST LOVE / who’ll fucker? strange new testament & last /
DEATH WILL !
END OF TITLE:
POEM:
Out from the cool lunch of her thighs
there springs
flowers of death. soulful, lost minstrel
half in love with easeful life

ambitious & lazy

WHOSE GREAT WORKS WILL YOU EXHUME?

There comes the fragrance of an eastern philosophy
from the cookbook
Sunday school teacher
one second as the heat rises & the plants droop
in her sad
visions of christ in duck
along the unsealed streets & in the jungles

like spiritual fowlshooter Billy Graham on heat too
saying his w g grace
frotteur
of the broken bread
                                    no wine.

WHOSE GREY PALACES ARE CRUMBLING
while the flowers wilt & thigh

high systems like poles tilt
& the machine switches off

& the hip
levers
                        glow

                                    & the balls disappear
                                    & the fuses jam with in the coils & rocks split
                                    & flowers are exhumed after all
                                    but do not bloom

TESTAMENT:
                                    DESPITE THE TECHNICIANS SKILL
                                                                           
                                                                            END OF TESTAMENT:

                                    (being of coal)

SEAL:                           conceived & written this thirteenth day November ‘68
                                   by WILL.            END OF SEAL

NAME:                          DAVID MITCHELL:       END OF NAME.

First published in /Free / Poetry/ 4 (April 1969), Sydney

©David Mitchell