4 [an excerpt]
what am I without you
telling me?
to look upon us, two of us
in darkness, with barely
enough skin
lit to establish
our age, the gender
or the race
unharnessed from your own
density, even that
against the odds
beyond our reach, a some‘thing’
always is
and doesn’t offer proof
of any sort, to any creed:
and yes, it says, and no
and all these things will go.
4.1
this is never not with me
or between you. leaves
and shadows, carpentry,
the levers Archimedes said
could shift entire worlds
of obsolete employment;
like the lady on her motorbike
each week, in red, delivering
the amount of what she once
had each day to do.
4.2
half way to the bathroom
in the porous semi-dark
of city-fit apartments
one of the Turkish mats
required by the building
to cover sound loads
for those a floor below
the polished boards
skids underfoot, a little,
but enough
that I become uncertain
that we must
completely un-interpret
all that we were told,
delete a heap of code.
some say delete the lot
but that leaves me cold
feeling that amount
of moments dropped
into the space between
the mirror and the self
of which you’re looking at,
pretty sure I’m somewhere
here between the words.
A lack of light is not
our main concern
nor the feeling Jupiter
could fit into the room!
4.3
back in bed, upon her,
that gap within us has me
lay my length within her
my lever working upwards
mound to mound
making soapy wet her interest
a bone bruised atoning of this
diaphanously felt
hold, more Saturn and her rings—
because I’m only Halfsure
Time & Memory, car insurance
a Country…6 before
seven, unsure if anything
exists; a morning
last week, her silhouette
in the mushroom cloud, too big,
I thought, the whole back
wall in the Mind’s museum.
in black & white, the full length
naked girl, running from the napalm
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
in the lotus-like unfolding
of this world. I have received
what I desire
says the Colour in the Fire.
In Beauty, proof is rarely needed.
Thanks, Peter. The photo mentioned could be from the archives of what Yeats called (and a) terrible beauty (is born)
Amazing piece, Dean, 4.3 is like a splash of napalm in the mind. You’ve made your case:
In Beauty, proof is rarely needed.