Sunday, December 26, 2010

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

the colour wheel








A Red Nebula

I thought of one girl's dress
with her red legs migrating beneath it
(Alouette, gentille Alouette)
friendless but hoping for chances
her tanned shoulders, bony like a fish
making solitude of her body's architecture
a white firmament that holds stars in the form of
freckles that smear her cheeks and arms
the pink smile of her tan lines are vacuous
(Alouette, je te plumerai)
her feathers are bland and unhappy
dead too young, or before her time
everything has come to sleep in her eyes
the dress is continuous
there is no nudity beneath
her breasts
her thigh
they are the curve of mortality
receding forever in the universe

there is no want in my mouth
or hunger in my finger tips
I'm not in pain - I don't ache
my hands don't itch or shake
but my throat is dry
and I feel like turning you on

s. Sparling





prisoner of mars



Sunday, December 19, 2010

the old world

'


master of hands of stars and nudists
the lady is taming a snake
she is charming a magic snake
arms - milk white - sumptuous
body like a blue electric arc
dancing with the eel
she is immune to the bone tooth
impervious to god venom
and a black lace layer of lingerie 
space black and revealing
cloys to her rolls of flesh
making a whispering curtain
between the white cloud of breast
and the yellow serpent coil
master of hands with tulips and roses
king of kaleidoscope puddles
why would you ever allow it?
have you been struck blind by arrows?
or do you see and choose not to move
or can you not move?
master of hands and nicks and scratches
the snake has struck her heart
she never bleeds but her eyes
turn blank as an april's sun
and the snake reveals its belly and dies
and the lady reveals her smile and dies
master of hands you've witnessed all
but your joints are sluggish and sleeping
what will it take to shake you
another lady?
another snake?

S. Sparling




Sunday, December 5, 2010

sweet marie







cloud on the tracks

 




Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
 I
 Among twenty snowy mountains,
 The only moving thing
 Was the eye of the blackbird.

 II
 I was of three minds,
 Like a tree
 In which there are three blackbirds.

 III
 The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
 It was a small part of the pantomime.

 IV
 A man and a woman
 Are one.
 A man and a woman and a blackbird
 Are one.

 V
 I do not know which to prefer,
 The beauty of inflections
 Or the beauty of innuendoes,
 The blackbird whistling
 Or just after.

 VI
 Icicles filled the long window
 With barbaric glass.
 The shadow of the blackbird
 Crossed it, to and fro.
 The mood
 Traced in the shadow
 An indecipherable cause.

 VII
 O thin men of Haddam,
 Why do you imagine golden birds?
 Do you not see how the blackbird
 Walks around the feet
 Of the women about you?

 VIII
 I know noble accents
 And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
 But I know, too,
 That the blackbird is involved
 In what I know.

 IX
 When the blackbird flew out of sight,
 It marked the edge
 Of one of many circles.

 X
 At the sight of blackbirds
 Flying in a green light,
 Even the bawds of euphony
 Would cry out sharply.

 XI
 He rode over Connecticut
 In a glass coach.
 Once, a fear pierced him,
 In that he mistook
 The shadow of his equipage
 For blackbirds.

 XII
 The river is moving.
 The blackbird must be flying.

 XIII
 It was evening all afternoon.
 It was snowing
 And it was going to snow.
 The blackbird sat
 In the cedar-limbs.


W. Stevens

Thursday, December 2, 2010