Saturday, September 30, 2017

At the Obelisk of On


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Tide swells up to the constraints of form
           Cold, sinister
  Spreading nausea from the sky to thoughts to traffic,
               seasickness become universal, small animals in the ceiling
                                
Sudden birdflight flashes
                     Off wave-pang panic reflections
       Face-on-the-ground wallops of beauty and evil,
                              flipping, simultaneous
Ground gargoyles grinning, the sepulchral skyline, steel mausoleums
        Leap howling into the onrushing metal
                                         London kills me
 
               And nothing to drink
          Basic functions of the body in Titanic projection skyward
  Strike, attack, scream of Pan
      and every face etched with it,
                                            the inner stream polluted with it,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe
                     flowing prophetic to the estuary
  (Fried goat-cheese reflux of chunks and brine)
Once and always one of the dark places of the earth

               And here it stands, erected,
   barged in with insane effort and expense to this shore
 got good into her Book and tongued her every passage
                               Immolated nest to radiating square;
                                                                                Ominous antenna of On
                                        Still the highest technology of the city
          inducting flows of currency, corruption, genius, goods
voices carved into images undecipherable, shining to the gods
                          River of Sothis to River of Isis
         Echoing-back metropolitan from all the standing columns of Empire
               Ringing stone-electric axles of space and time

Tell me all. Tell me now.
      Delta-wise gossip, cylinders and ovoids
                all floating, all shifting, none stable, all beautiful, all sick
   Drawn erotic drops from an ancient drinking party burn and heal
        in cities of the sun and the rain, funneling pure din
           with open ears in chains.

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