Time prickled
In my bones, tickled
My lonely cave retreat.
It was sweet
To forget, upon this new planet,
Everything but my new vanity.
All the rules here were so parochial,
But I never felt broke. Ellipses
Round the sun swung under me, until
I forgot my ice-milk home, quilted
Whiteness, vague, recalled
Shapes of celestial aldermen.
My doubled eyes flew open.
Here I learned to cope and–
Like the frog hunched in the pond
Whose half-immersed, wandering
Eyes see below a green and misty realm
And, above, the vaulting elms
Clear as the sound of rat-tat-tatting
Woodpeckers–saw this and that! Ingrown
Sleep ceased.
The beast
Of the forest snuffling,
Ruffling
His back hairs
At the foot of the spiral stairs
Lifted his muzzy snout
And let out
A snort, a roar,
And wept like the River Jordan.
And I walked amidst men,
Men of the clouds, at attention,
Ram-rod
Stiff, hosanna-ing God,
And men of the wadis and deltas,
Of the Congo of hell, tussling
Husked boars, men of the silver-skinned
Coast, of the eye-tearing wind.
And all that remained
Was, with these stained
Hands, to be kind,
To mind
My P's and Q's,
To recuse
Myself from all conflicted
Interests, and interdicted
Judgements.
I had to budge. Tents
That I had set up
Were a**aulted by the wind without let-up,
And the keen
Cold cleanness
Prickles in my skin and nerves,
Swerves, trickles, in a trice,
An icicle rivulet
Down my spine,
And I give you this old wine,
Which burns and warms, inside,
The lazing lion's pride.