Now the Poet Undertakes a Practical Act

Ici commence la grande nuit de mes mots.

ARAGON

Velvet or cotton or silk tempests’ gale

The vases Your breasts speak the image mundane

White raven in snow white alders pale plane

Laboratory of opals The water a trail

Pearls from the fish house displayed in the cage

cold of lauds blustering praise songs to night

murmurs of vapor the swords that alight

like the sea recollecting the spaces erased

and the needle that melts in the slivers of nails

water-borne centaur eyelid of my sleep

what country what closed habitations what keep

are the linings of silk marring stars like a veil

In the azurine eyes of the scarecrows are stakes

the rings on the roof clusters bellow up soot

stars in the hollow dead wheat underfoot

the mane of the mare with blue eyes, the pale lake

When the swords bar your body I will not seek for death

bars of darkness bars body body bowed blood in teeth

my stomach a forge my blind eyes fire-wreathed

blood on gums on the palate lungs blow burning breath

Draped in the darkness with arms cut away

in my thorax the organ wheezes its tune

childhood downpours the salt in the wounds

thunder in the garden flood fan water’s spray

On the outcrop the lightning bares trophies above

in the mirror white body more iron for the fire

autumnal veneries foxes howling as choir

dry leaves tell the legend the goldenrod glove