Poetry
Thoughts of Gorky, Looking into Vermont Woods, at Tinling’s, October 3, 2004
Photograph ©Brian Molyneaux (2004).One stands on a creaking,
with October leaves
like cobra hoods
waltzing, wattled
parasols.
My eyes focus latrines—
a putrification is under way.
Warm bath of heart re-obtained,
to inhale, to be in the columnar density of
a warming that now
takes on global contours.
Leaves as reefs
birch-white with amber pink
lime-tinted
patches,
Atlas still
the molten under-yolk,
the sphincter of mayhem
Gorky breathed in
staring at gnats adrift,
grass entanglements,
entry
an ever-exiting bruise,
burst
flagellation of a pyre
drummed on by ants
possessed in elfin serenade.
Cockscomb and marigold are
thistled in
a graphite legacy
recalling Crane at Melville’s grave.
Monody of a line
picked up at Pech Merle.
The supped russet totality
eye-needled through.
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