Month: Jul 2020

Over every mountaintop
a peace,
a barely-felt breath of wind
in the trees;
birds in the woodland are still.
Wait, soon
such rest will be yours as well.

after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A naked bulb
in passive space
a kinesis
of grace

shutters the beam
a shower of grain
in our darkness
the unseen

witnesses we
see we receive
the lucid birth
we leave

our colour drawn
from that surface
of cut image
and still face

Who are these that take their place
each side of you? One woman
is eyeless and yet she sees
(or seems to); what has she done?
The other is lost in praise
and rich furs. Her breasts have gone.

The images are restrained: scenic
languishing Virgins of the Death-Wish,
they are nude and rapt as arrows suck
purple out of notwithstanding flesh.

Their blood is a most becoming shade.
Dazzled as they are, and heaven-bent
on a scarlet cleanness, they parade
the slow smiles of their abandonment

to the mute adoring entourage.
A gathering witness, we observe
and sanctify this sticky outrage;
we love it; it is what we deserve.