Saturday, June 27, 2015

In the Ancient Kingdom of Exuma

I.
There's no getting around this wall,
With its glittering codes
That lock out all souls from its sea-bed cities.
I strain and I cry, only to find
That I am the city, breathing.
The only way through: the blue liquid of truth
Drifting like ink to something alive.

II.
The more airtight the explanation,
The more unassailable the fact,
The more wrong it is,
Because there's a power in it then
To be right, to sweep away
The pain and the wrong on this dark side
Of the world
With a clean beam
Of light.

III.
People turn to stone like coral too
Their faces remembered
And forms preserved,
But the force that was their living
Is still elusive,
Unforgiven.

IV.
The poison of the anemone, still,
Is seen as less than its ambrosia.
We are in pain.
We can't let go.
There must be something separate
To hold onto.

V.
The poetfish glisten in such a way
One thinks that they are mirrors
Or something seen right through
But they are only large and thin
And swim with a certain sway.
Their inscrutable faces — star eyes,
Rarefied frowns — come alive in contempt,
Because they are seen
And because they are not.