I
you return breathless having started
phoenixes in the arroyos and having seen
on porphyry altars the pelican
rend itself tirelessly and the creature
with uncounted eyes
and who now creaking in rust soft armour
will bring this taper to the outer room
o the lost phalanxes the engulfed Gemini
where the guillotine animal Aies over the drowned lands
and the bleached heads turn incuriously
and no hand lifts
this Prometheus breeds his own eaglets
at first daybreak a voice opens crevices in the air
“fear no more”
the horns of those grey hunters wind along
ridges more inaccessible than dream
speak not let no word break
the stillness of this anguish
the omniscience of this vertigo
these lucent needles are fluent
in the gold of every memory
the past curls like wire
II
and now surprised by lunar mountain avatars
the avid eyes of gravid mice entice
each icy nostrum of the zodiac
sidelong on quavering feet the giants tread
the white Excaliburs the zero saws
the igneous granite pencils silvering
the plunge of light the conies barking
the white lips speak and Danae
Danae writhing in the fluent metal
the camels the llamas the dogsleds the burros
are loaded and go off in the white distance
and green over them the nova grows above the pass
III
shall see no more then what the daylight’s after
shall ask no more then forget the asker
shall fail at laughter and in the dark
go mumbling the parched gums fumbling the baggy heart
bark with the mice in the rubbish bayed at by rats
the glaciers are senile and covered with dust but the moun
tain cracks
the orange red granite breaks and the long black slivers fall
fine ice in the air and the stone blades falling and the open-
ing vault
and the high milk blue lake tipping over its edge in a mile
long wavering water-fall
and for these weapons in what forge and from what steel
and for this wheat what winnowing floor what flail
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