BLACK HOLE FARMING
For Marie Le Lièvre
1/
So
shall I hum a wee ditty in praise of uncertainty,
that
insulating pink fuzzy blanket of the possible?
The
fog transforms the traffic signal’s go
into
the
floating emerald tablet of Hermes Trimegistus,
while
a fine haze and the light in the right way turns
a
distant hill suburb of McMansions into ancient Rome.
In
the uncertain shadows of anachronistic candlelight
faces
are faces are devils are faces are death’s heads.
Leave
me this haven for whimsical fancy, let me fall
like
an aquatint pūriri flower at every thought
as
I plant and glean facets and glints in a place
where
space and time break down in a sweeping
disk
around an abyss so deep and awful not even
dreams
have the strength to escape from it.
2/
The
spring hail, lightning like straws in long grass
at
an A&P show, on and off like a bloody tap
has
plastered the petals of the fruit trees to the
wet
frosted glass of the bathroom window
turning
the world beyond into a painting of the
garden
at Giverny in toilet-paper pinks and
whites
but I think we can safely kiss goodbye to the
prospect of peaches and apples.
Pray for the deliverance of the plums.
3/
In
the small hours of the morning, wake me Fear
there
in the dark make your mark upon me
Remind
me I am all alone and that you rule me
even
when you hide in the honey of daylight
Bend
and break me when you and your army
ascend
from the ivory gate in my pillow
and
stand around my bed in thunderously silent
darkness,
muttering and worsening. Wake me
with
one cold hand around my throat and one
clenched
tight around my heart.
4/
Writing poetry for public consumption
is like serving up something sacred to be devoured:
not like the earnest priest offering up
the Eucharist; the miracle of transubstantiation,
but like the Hindu kid supporting
himself through school flipping beef burgers.
5/
When it all crushes in under its own weight
the bottom falls out of it and it becomes
infinity and singularity, but that was another
universe
and besides, the star is dead, a penny for
the old one. When two galaxies merge in aeonic
slow motion, their dark hearts twirl together
“spin-flip” like two drops of quicksilver seamlessly
into a new black hole that either settles down
in the new galaxy or bounces off out to go bother
and devour other galaxies
6/
My mother likes Chrysanthemums, the ones
like crisply curled hair fashioned out of bronze.
They were liked too by imperial Japan,
blossoming late in the year. Bruised in the hand
they emit a medicinal perfume, but rice paper
and black lacquered oriental interior,
while aesthetically pleasing, is to my taste,
is not as gemütlich as my mother’s house.
7/
The lights are out in the universe and it unsleeping
uncommunicating except for damaged information
Reaching the uttermost limit of strain caved in
but still full of a terrible energy and supressed
rage
rushing around the absolute edge of itself
voraciously sucking down the red-shifted spaghetti
of stars, that’s where the shy wild violets grow
8/ De Nerval, El Desdichado
I am the Dark One, the Widower, the Inconsolable
I am the Aquitanian Prince whose tower has fallen
My star is dark, and in the constellation of my lyre
is born the Black Sun of Melancholy.
In the Night of the Tomb you gave me consolation
Return to me Mount Posillipo and the Italian Sea,
the flower that pleased my desolate heart
and the trellised vineyard where grape and rose are
one,
Am I Love? Or Phoebus? Biron? Or Lusignan?
My brow is still flushed from the kiss of the Queen.
I dreamt in the grotto where the Siren swims….
And twice victorious crossed the Acheron
playing in turn on my lyre
the sighs of the Saint and the screams of the Fay
[in B-flat 57 octaves below middle-C
for two and a half billion years]
9/
The history of culture is one of fleeing cliché:
eos
rhododaktylos rises over the oinops pontos
Lucretius in search of the clinamen, dodging
unpredictably swerving atoms, sideswiping
Cardinals and quince trees, marching on fields
of sidereal force and joy’s tender enduring
radiance.
The
Apollonian Sun of Transformation has fused
with
the Dionysian Black Sun of Night.
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