A man leaves a roadside cafe at dawn. He has a pigeon in his eye and floats feathers on his tongue. The sky forms itself into pigeons and swoops down to meet him. The man yells, "Behold! Behold!" Up above, a new kingdom of clouds is anti-celestial. Hands take a chainsaw to history which reforms as a puzzle in space. More children are born with herring in their eyes while ancestors weave nets to catch them.
beneath
my window,
red aching tulips
*
Wind blows
the moment I
branches aching heaven
Now seems a good time. I've been putting it off for years. Now seems the right time. Ok I'm going to pick up Dante and start reading, perhaps spice it up with a dose of St.Thomas Aquinas. Yes, now seems the right time. The plan is to write a series of poems in response, salted with medieval mystical theology and flavours of the early renaissance. Truth is, I'm scared. Dante is daunting. But Bede Griffiths told me to do it. And Thomas Merton. And I trust those guys. I probably won't post many of the poems here. I'll sit on them, save them for something special, who knows what? But I will post the poem I wrote today, an introductory poem invoking divine mercy and all sorts of other stuff to help me on my journey into the underworld. Here it is . . . wish me luck:
Forest of half formed misfortunes,
half moon hang nails,
half hung
demoniac embryos,
I approach you with a slacker’s concupiscence,
metaphysically maladjusted.
Go lightly with my slow-witted digibox,
my irregular dopamine WiFi.
You transcend the equinox,
the suppurating Catholic beatification
of a plum coloured sun penumbra.
You shape me brickless.
