One river that began in rivulets,
That ended in a cataract, One aquifer that emerged into A system of canals, pickabacked, Blended, created a whole ecology Trees whose leaves basked in the blazing Sun. And a wind that came from The horsehead nebula, dazing And shivering among the dark, slick Rocks, a wind in which the swallows Turned, the caves crashed with sound, And multiples of song filled the hollows.
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Sometimes it is hard to deal with all
The details, all the rules, Because you just want to get to The top, and who needs mules? Or maybe you haven’t taken your medicine And you’ve left some spotted ampoules, Or maybe the two are mixed together And you cannot catch the molecules. So you need an acupuncturist for one And an herbalist for the other, dragon bones And mugwort at cross-purposes, Accept the needles and the cones, Climb to the lookout point, when You get a call, you can see the globe Curve, and you’re needed to come To the lobby to pacify Job. (The trunk of the tree
Hangs in green light), in The branches life swarms, seeks, Flow of sap, adrenaline, So restrained, we only hear A squirrel scrape, still The life proliferates, the roots Grasp the plateau, the hill, Almonds grow, wild apples, Blackberries, the bluebird seeks Grasshoppers, the chipmunk carries Wheat seeds in its cheeks. First we irradiate the roots.
And discover their dependence On a huge boulder. And that tree And stone, their resplendence, Become a river and island. The river And island are blood and the heart. It is a bright day. The sun blazes Your eyes. Nothing remains apart. The river is flowing to the sea. The windmills are turning, the smoke Dissipates, the sound of the water, The green dapple of the oak. The LSD had a delayed reaction,
For one person it took an hour, For another twenty years. It dropped Into an iced tea, it permeated a shower Across a county. Some parts were Digested easily, and a tree appeared With a human face. Other times It took awhile before the blue ponies reared. But what good will it do when we Do not read or walk along The avenue and give a quarter To a bum or to King Kong? A strength comes from words, From points, from sparks, from life Scattered in the trees and Cuba Road, the mantis and fife, Caught in the web or van Allen belt, The instrument panels glow, The patient is growing stronger, The valley under the dirty snow Opens to a pool, and through The narrow defile the stream Spreads, the minnows flash, The broader current frees the bream. Knowledge itself ducks into a hole,
The elevator sinks down underground, With layers of shards of statues, Skeletons, burned or drowned, Silver-foiled clay jars, Hieroglyphics of fiery lips, A heart half-eaten by a Centipede, then the ellipse, Then the light, the zinc spark When sperm and egg collide, Or galaxies grasp and strain The cowboy legs embrace the slick horse hide. The minus is by nature dead,
It is chopping away at the tree, Its legs are deformed and it speaks The sayings of a fool. Catastrophe, Its head is removed, it cannot see The glow, it scrambles to the cave It composes psalms, proclaims, Its brains are scattered, its grave Ideas, the avenues of its heart, Its dark ideals, its stagger, Its stumbling shuffle in the fog, It kneels and with a chipped dagger Hacks at the vines, and its mind Flies, the crows flock and caw, Land upon the tree, step sideways, Invoke their own guttural law. Skyscrapers and centipedes, they’re all
In these tracks that trudge across The desert. A red fluorescing scorpionfish, In Samir Ahmedov, the moss, The liverwort, the Caucasian grouse At the edge of the birch forest, and They are all alive, even the pockmarked Cobble, the light that shifts on the sand. When the straw is rotting, and strewn
To efface the road, the stones Still bruise, the holes still shake Your bones, glanders attack the roans, And sinkholes are swallowing homes. And twilight creeps across the border, The sun creeps across the sky And everyone feels ropy, out of order, Until the sun will illuminate The lavender, the purple iris, The letters carved on stone That match the grain of the papyrus. But when the mildew blights the indigo Until the stems grow grey and dry, The sun will shine a healing light, A sword will hang across the sky Someone is whacking away at the tree,
Refusing to listen, he started A fire on the horizon, a demon Sits on the desolate fence, he has darted And swung his oxen horns, he flew in From tomorrow, the day after that, When the rules will be abated, But the spell is wrong and flat. Yes, on the 310th floor, everything Is smooth, you can see the stars Swinging, and the country stretching Beneath the sun and moon, Venus and Mars, And you can even see the sea and Its whales, its rejoicing bottlenose Dolphins, then the paths in the sea, The paths in the sky turn rose, It is all a script, a script That was etched on our bones, At the side of the road, that Shown on the silver milestones. |
Yaacov David Shulman
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October 2019
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