A proposed anthology of free verse.
We
speak as of going beyond a certain time, a train of events
which have arisen out of circumstances quite foreign to
corporeal ailments. We touch upon themes of body, death,
memory, and love – the corporality of the celestial – to
seek that which possesses or obsesses the mind, and can
exert power transmitted through the motive and sentient
spinal nerves, here occasioning a little smarting of the
eyes.
This anthology contains the remains
of those substances which existed in the world, and can be
remembered as past, or imagined on some other occasion,
where the mind does not regain its balance. And it must be
some fatal error that causes a rapid descent
– love must fall upon someone deprived of all
salutary control, or the memory of a life that was
calculated to exist in heaven.
- Calcitrare
in testiculis
It may be taken for granted that there is no
honourable way out of the most atrocious poetry called
‘contemporary’. There appears a most deplorable union
of publishers (litty-fiddlers) and everyday banality,
and after this customary stupefaction no robbery,
murder, or other heinous crime is too good for them.
We are all men of strange truth, and we recognise it as
such.
Selection:
God’s Own Will
There is particular
difficulty in the notion
Of an external world
and the consequent unreality of things.
Such is the beauty of a
clock work.
We have no proof of
spontaneous generation,
And cannot conceive of
it as so existing –
The better able to
resist the constraints
Of supernatural
appearances which tend quickly
To undergo a slight
molecular change,
Sometimes very
remarkably.
The science of pure
time unfolded.
The body trembled.
I have prebreathed the
vital air,
And in this condition
erections easily occur.
All things are either
dead or alive.
For this reason, I have
lingered over time:
It is a deception and
bears a slight resemblance
To friendship or love,
the abstract ideas of things
Not readily or vividly
recalled.
The rise and progress
of them in conception
Is now apparent. Then
arises the necessity for a wish.
But they (who have a
yearning) are slow to feel,
And, by chance
irritation, crawl upon another animal
And expend themselves
physically on the phenomena of nature.
There are rules common
to every scheme of predestination,
And being satisfied of
its entire and perfect necessity,
I am struck with the
feeling of recognition,
The very great proof of
life.
Body
Neatly arranged in line
and look, a little ball of clay
drawn down by
celestial, differed so far in shape and bloom
In all kinds of heat,
ready to animate the sparkling eye,
Gilded inside, colour
light pink.
The ground of all its
glory, becoming fuller, and softer,
In sympathy with the
womb, more open and spacious,
And bleeds when
pricked.
Not a drop extracted,
though blaze with azure and emerald.
More strange than any
other motions, ovarian and spinal,
Seminated as garnet,
descending deeply,
Driven by a momentary
impulse, loosely but symmetrically,
Force conceived to act
as to produce a deadly artifice:
No pain, no
respiration. None would be blessed.
No rain falls between
her thighs.
The skin of the blonde
stroked with a feather,
Before midnight, when
lying down.
The Devils
The devils cannot
generate upon women,
And of their own accord
can never act a lie.
The devils may
terminate their existence by self-destruction –
Invisible, indeed, but
slightly subject to death and darkness.
From all and singular
things does existence come spontaneously,
The dead are somewhat
alive to this fact.
The devils may crowd
themselves into the compass of atoms,
And be spasmodically
held in that free space above and beneath the moon.
Some other inhabitants
may be driven to despair.
They will have no place
void. They move in measured step.
They might make an
overt attack, and with stupid wonderment
Conceive agony as the
beginnings of animal life.
Others still, may
consider eternity as a malady peculiar to their sex,
A ceremonial observance
to put the body out of pain.
Then this must be
spiritual also, they having been long
Accustomed to perform
such rites: an imperceptible germ
Nourished in the womb;
“I love you.”
Hang-Monday
A sovereign lord, like
a tender passion,
So sweetly beguiling,
and knows no bodily shape,
But like sudden light
of joy and recognition,
Affording a temporary
union, as might be expected,
With the human soul.
A long-desired voice,
how beautiful it is!
An ethereal medium
pervading all space,
A truth evidently
revealed.
He shall not appear in
his whole body,
A luminous figure that
breathed a deep nature,
Spirited away, half
turned, merely visible to the naked eye,
Still living, preceded
by a sensation, the same light of revelation.
The talk is
straightaway of babes that loved each other dear.
By alteration of things
that remain, every perfect gift from above
Is continual and
uninterrupted.
She is discovered on
Hang-Monday,
And heard in the
adjoining room,
which properly
signifies hell.
The Transient
Visitant
Here is the rooted vine
planted out in the low pits,
Not infested, not
observable of any sexual form of multiplication.
The object drawn by eye
has no breadth of being:
I declare things
enabled, no sex discovered in the
Extremity of the
abdomen, no foetal heart heard.
Every incipient dread
shall be revealed.
All else is fume.
The transient, only
like moving shapes, to be imagined
And not allowed to
waken. And if they are deformed and suck
Upon the breast, they
will go back and recall no other life.
The spirits who living
entirely upon dreams, seem to be gathered,
That we may suspect the
existence of another child.
Ova
Before the human female
appeared, perfumed with sweet things,
The last metamorphosis
(so often before named as resurrection)
Took place: a being
existing here only temporarily, a vestige
Of terrestrial breath
so far withdrawn from original nature,
Seeking the place
below, but still subservient
To human pleasures, to
those above, and to the divine.
The creature has the
characteristics of both sexes – nebulae and rare –
And gives origin to the
female organ, the nature of flowers,
And the everlasting of
semen upon the prolific earth.
The worms and brutes
sing praises to God,
And the creature having
leisure takes an interest in itself,
And demands particular
attention, and is not at all perplexed
By the amatory life;
which by a kind of habit produce ova.
Heaven might appear the
more transcendent, coalescing soft,
Rather rare, a
smooth-faced animal of a very promising
Appearance equal to
that of the finest classic outline.
Yet the unchanging
picture is a visionary dream,
An involuntary act that
constitutes infinity.
What the female
furnishes is not thus alive,
Except by accident, and
is essentially immortal.
From Heaven
Spirit of the air, who
dies faintly away, there is scarcely a memory.
No bond of association
required in the first movement to take away
A part from the rest,
to draw the breath that goes out of the womb,
And only admits of
momentary duration. A change of habit,
As if unconscious:
dresses dreaming, and made perfect as the first day.
The husky skin touched
with the naked hand, hair curling beautifully.
An unblemished revival
passed over time, and would pass through space –
A single shock, pressed
into the opening, excited and moved by itself,
A slightly luminous
flame that came from heaven.
Immortal
Now the whole mystery
revealed to me, unknowingly
Yet surely, passing
from death to life on the new earth.
The apparition waking
out of sleep – gold and silver –
The spinneret on the
soft membrane, the drop hanging below,
First called a
chrysalis, laid singularly upon the human frame.
Loose hair and skin
covered with a piece of muslin;
The life carried away,
swept into the open extremity.
And from the
all-pervading law seen then to return
Void of all perceptible
heat – the arms wide open,
Close the fingers up,
and so I made a thought endowed
With endless life. And
from the mere organism of matter
Reduced to immortality
– “You are that boy,”
And slipped my hand
away.