By Brian George
Birds plead their case before the presence wrapped in rags: “We obey you. They won’t.” The boy attends the war fought to prevent the Earth’s beginning.
*
The once great powers argue in a small tent by the ocean.
The wave towers above the boy. The armies led by Archeopterix advance. A few leave wing prints on North Africa. Green, to destruction flung, giants copulate with fish. Turning against light the Earth devolves. Tribes laugh at the god in bondage. Dead kamikazes mass.
The institute above the steps of Asia flares.
*
The empire falls. On a dock I curl up with my arms around a crate.
*
She who leads took over when I slept.
*
It is late at night. Summer. Wind circles my apartment. For the whole season I have watched my vision grow.
My wish was to create. The muse hears. She gives access to more worlds than I could gainfully employ. It has come to my attention that there is no one in my chair. Even ghosts do not believe that I exist. Few can tell that I am pregnant with the shape of things to come. I have less self than the shadow thrown by a disassembled colossus. The door slams as I leave to wander down the railroad tracks. It is late at night.
Smoke billows from the tall stacks of a factory now abandoned. There are thousands of feet waiting for their shoes. If I dared I would untie my own to walk barefoot through the constellations. Clothes also are unnecessary. It is said that humans are the cattle of the gods. I alone am free.
*
My ear expands! In a bubble the Egyptoid eunuchs buzz.
*
As the dead project me through the haunted arch I turn to smile at a subject. Giants blink from the effects of too much sacrifice. The winds at Cydonia freeze my bent bones to a plow.
Grand unified conspiracies obscure the monuments on Mars.
*
Where the snare's architect puts evidence new fissions bare the strata. We disinter the technocratic phallus of the ancients. My muse shakes me. I watch myself attack the living stone I cling to. Kicking and screaming I am dragged off into hyperspace. The philosopher’s stone has no sense of compassion. It is larger than the wheel of history. It is fueled by Soma. It does not believe that human death is real.
The force preserves. Its surrogate destroys.
*
Wave on wave they crash against the moorings. The depths discharge the wealth of a lost continent. For the book fight waves of Mesozoic hawks. The horizontal every time looks newer than a dream. The foundations of the dream tilt.
*
It is a summer made of oceanic scents. I fit my vision in a seed with 8 thousand years left over. A fog settles on my city and its lamps.
*
The ancient returns from exile leaning on a staff. He burns the aviary.
(Illustration: Adolph Gottlieb)
No comments:
Post a Comment