Blue Corn.

Part 1.

1).

i.

The first line on the first empty page,
had thought to escape its life sentence,
as it struggled to be born & then be gone,
like an errant angel for the first time
falling into the breach,
& then once more be beyond reach.

ii.*

Metamorphosis.

Implacable, the jaw set,
crows feet dart in jet
black, the brow frosts.

Only cheekbones blaze
& the eyes glint as
Eurydice fades once again

But for the final time &
the towers of Babylon
have fallen down.

There is only exile now,
on the hills of hegemony.

*After Ovid.

iii.

Say I am the wind, the rain, the stone, the ferryman.
Say I am the tree, the star, the moon, the diadem
& the grail of the crane O Avalon.

iv.

We dream we are dreamt of,
that we remember & are remembered
& as characters of play come & go, but
the stars plot their own destiny not ours.

Part 2.

Vertigo.

1.)

i.

The clouds vehicle to lightening disperse never knowing the ground.

The crowd protest cruelty knowing blind indifference.

In the myriad of non entity there is a voice.

The arrow makes a T on the horizon.

ii.

Vertigo of mirrors,
sphere of past & future,
the maze & the spiral meet
without entrance or exit,
in the intangible present.

iii.

Vertigo of metaphors:
translations are messages
read in a labyrinth of mirrors,
the weavings of flying carpets
turned to metaphors of sky & earth
in the vertigo of their anonymities.

iv.

Beneath the glittering chandelier,
the clothes stand in the hall
is dressed to the nines.
Sparrows haunt the dreamers face,
heroes & heroines of the hour parade
with iconic architypes, as if eternal,
whilst heaven’s ape prowls
the museum with tooth chattering grin.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Part 3.

Black Sheep

1.)

i.

War Paint*

In the beginning the first human ape wore war paint
& invaded all other ape territories bringing to
them berserk gesticulations and confusions.

Later humans turned again to apes and baked salt
where war paint laid waste & there were scars &
fissions on the face of the earth.

Then the heavenly ape descended.
Humans worshipped it but it wandered
lost in exile & disappeared into the waters.

Humans lacked it but it was too late
for on their markings was war paint.

*After Augusto Monterroso.

ii.

In a world without end there are moments
that are forever but history waits for no one.

iii.

Transfixed in the glare, the statue
wears the same mask as the crowd
transfixed in the glare, almost mortal,
amidst its manifest & unmanifest self.

iv.

The worm never sees the light of day
but for the bird of prey,
even in a bed of roses.

v.

Into the brightest day,
Van Gogh fugitive werewolf of the moon,
Reaper of corn, dies
In a blaze of gold & fury at the feast.

Part 4.

1.)



Thesus returns with a black sail.

Icarus plummets from the rock tarred & feathered.

The ceaseless music of old that leapt in the lyre
ceaseth now and is cold in the halls of thy sire*

Hypolitus, star son, archer of love, the last hero,
runs with Artemis and her maenads.

Tomorrow he too will be hurled from the rock to Poseidon.

The rock imprisons Merlin, chains Prometheus first man of fire
daily devoured by an eagle who tears out his liver.

Zeus rule the rock & Poseidon the sea.

YHW is Lord of the Dead...

* Hypolitus. Euripides.
* After the Marriage of
Cadmis and Harmony. Roberto Calasso.

iii.

Covert no glory of life though its miracle be glorious,
we are no more than the song of the swan.

iv.

Delicate is the ostrich in unruffled silhouette against the horizon.
Darkness rises from the submerging shadow of earth cast by the sun

Fin
All rights reserved Robin Hislop Copyright 2003