Being and Opinion

We begin with the approach to everything
That is of which its consciousness
Will be a part so that you could call
The approach an advance
Towards itself. "Such an ingress
Will never be a progress." Admittedly,
It does have some solidity: regard's
Primitive would be inertia. "No
Regard but a glance
And a reflection. The principle
Is like a mirror." So
This refraction tesselates itself
Into a fractal that can never hold
Its own infinity (refraction
Is an element of light, which always
Differs from itself regarding things, thus these
Waves are very like opinion and the world
It opines).

Love

A beautiful, smooth and narrow
Slits, the gleam, the sound --
Like calx -- like a reed incanted
By the season. It
Is not a substance!
The word must be a he or you. Will
We come close when two
Materials meet? Give us
One idea. Well,
a word between us
And a tongue. Is it
All then that germinates, is it
Bees when they pluck
The flower's progeny? Mirrors
Maybe, you will find
An image in a soul.
But if I must have a truth
Then I will be alone, whereas
Even understanding is
The bond of those
Who grasp and pull
Themselves to themselves
And wind around
Their bodies in their emptiness
The things they know.

Analysis

The clouds will clear, unfolding the sky
Circumspect, the sun
Will blow the islands, show
Its force to the purging air,
All birds become aloft
In their swart guile. Anthers buzz
Meanwhile and every supple
Sap. Here too is deluge
Of draught, light comes
Thick in its dance because sex is only
Species of collision. Bodies therefore
Must be warm
And clear, and what is bright
Must be the lust of eyes; this luster
Is a symbol -- what it means
Is sheen.

Reflux

It bubbles up in the throat,
Burning the tender; it scars
And sears the tissue
Which swells and tears; relay
Relates the change; the brain
Alerts itself through pains;
The pains distract
The mind and rend it
From immortal things,
And so the sense,
Sensing what is subject
To decay, itself decays: day
Darkens into time, and time
Brings its predictables until
The body dulls into a body
And its purpose lurches
Into law. There must be
Someone who reckons on the end
Of reckoning, and can find
A reason in unreasonable
Regress, in the bud
That freezes, in the blood
That ceases
Circulation, and in failure --
In temptation.

One Pastoral

Hills by fleece and grass, dirty
Mud mixes everything
Which melts, though no original
Since it is cold. Walls
Won't fortify with reed and fire
If it cooks can never warm, though
There are stars -- and that is puzzling,
Too. The sounds especially grow dim
Among what little grass,
And never in the spectacle surprise unless
The eyes forget. Still, there is wheat;
Still, there is meat. Still words
Are sometimes heard -- and that is puzzling,
Too.

Ruin

A deep from out a tower rising in rough hewn
Splices roughed and extraordinary about
The water and the sand
Wedged into obelisks, a significance of which
The monument abides though fallen, if
The leeway of a general
Collapse and tufts of rye
Amid the grass allow nothing
To emerge besides the calm
Conspiracy, whistling and weltering while glides
Surpass the frictionless above.

"Sight was a medium for beings seen..."

What falls away is the appearances,
Images in the half-light behind
Of which you cannot look, and especially
The black which is cool, flows
Like a slant. Their conjunction is a separate need
That never comes back, of none, for none:
Sight was a medium for beings seen.
Then it should have been firm. There should have been
Fire on the other side, maybe.

Theogony

Creatura: we were put here to create. The word
Is the creation of creations -- both the hollows of its sound
And the meaning that fills them
And fulfills them. It is responsible
Both for and to the world in which
It is made and which it makes --
This is its double harmony
In sound and sense. The best words
Therefore are a worship whereby offerings
Are once more offered up,
Where what was gift is given
Back: the giving mirrors the gift,
Which is itself a mirror to mirror
The mirror of what is mirrored
(And thus the sound gives way to sight,
And what was earth falls into flight).