THE TERRESTRIAL
The air heaving like a wounded fish,
Breathing through its purplish sandy gills,
Letting in the salty gale, fluttering its
Violet fan-like tail, vast, culminating in the distant mesh
Of mist completely ripped by the piercing starving eyes
Of planets sitting in their cosmic pits
Where their real image hides –
They purr heavily, deceitfully,
Glancing askance, revolving heedfully,
But keeping within this motion the uncurbed, heart-
Rending speed of their primeval, sloppy instinct
Which culminates in the twisted, swollen
Amber string of the horizon, still distinct,
Intact, and perfect, and complete.
Whatever dies in this gigantic rut
Overfilled with agony and water, it rockets to the stars
Amassed like silver coins upon a plate of brass,
It soars far above the predator that cut it,
Flies, flows, flaps its ravaged wings
Made whole again on the other side –
It
But being whole, ends up beyond its vital accident,
To reappear rapidly, when the outer circle is complete,
Like a stray tongue of light,
Dazzling its former monsters overspent,
Fatigued by their thirst and greed –
This light congeals on their fur like a green
Thread of algae, a small emerald enframed by these machines,
It rolls down abruptly, jumps from hair to hair, gleans
Their ponderous vapour, their clean
Spirit that envelops them and leans
Towards them, freeing them within their time,
So that they can palpitate, unbridled, tame,
Until no greed is left, no thirst for throbbing flesh, no taste
Of boiling salt, no memory of twitching fins, and haste
With which a creature shrinks towards its doom,
And freezes, and submits, once
The first resistance is broken, and the hands
Of their soul, the precious music, the untasted meal of time – out
It is spat, disgorged, revived, restored to its own dying shout
Which now begins to modulate and hastens
Through each chord that resonates around
The tactile crystal spheres falling down so
Fast that the unfurled drab wings appear slow
And awkward, and lag behind, beating about madly,
Scattering the feathers of the sunrise, and then halt, and suddenly
Release the loudest, the sharpest shriek, too
Reverberating, too unbearable,
Coming from the midst of their warble,
Remorselessly unsettled clatter, their sable
Heart angrily expanding, inflating, with its erratic growl,
Until it bursts, and loses thread, to live again, the whole
Horizon flashes up with the stable
Light of the serene pervading soul,
Descending now on the tops of mountains:
It settles down, but again blooms up, rotates, ascends
Abandoning its shattered universe, the cliffs, the sand,
The sky that calms us like our mother’s hand,
And keeps us whole, and chains.
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