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Gloom that is no gloom; timeless
mirror
butting timeless mirror-- that's the ocean and the gulf in the midnoon of all time when the sun has perched a moment like an albatross that pauses in its flight to wonder at what moves below so slow the moment in the noontide lay beyond recourse to words, tempts the recall in bright noon air to imagine the collapse of Tenochtitlan, Mohenjo Daro, Atlantis... catastrophes in us rest with other past sins as sargasso in the ship of soul (This non-moment lapsed on the lip of God who stuttered it down time-- time is belief and unbelief at first that first ripple cross the flat surface of the water then in the mirrored head that quenches its thirsts there then in the thought belief and unbelief like waves move forward, and we, stones skipped across the waves of endlessness, We ashore mark its skipping progress from some nowhere across overswollen seas but the stone too small too swift as it speeds on is gone before we react and name it calling out, "Look, there it goes!" and we bleed our eyes against horizon. IF we could name it, it would be AS IF we could catch pebbles in mid flight and fly with them over waves into tomorrow almost always at the crest, almost always in the troughs, above and below almost always in the timeless mirror. But we are tourists, even those who live forever among the sawgrass swamps and amid the loblolly pines, full of watching ourselves in the timeless mirror, full of belief and disbelief that we will like the waves on the shore be and not be in the same time. Jonas was leviathan spit and we also little more along the long beaches tanning, naked from our turmoils; on these beaches stench of Lazarus from baked too long carrion of sandcrabs rejected; move along, sand spiders, move along. Return no more. And I said to the miss next to me who rose from her peculiar death at the kiss of a sand spider at her misshapen toe, an ugly on her beauty, appearing wormish wretched wash from the sea upon the sand. To her, who had forgotten hidden nakedness, her lush firm pointed breasts salted with the remnant of times long past become the beach and the sweat of a good dream streaming 'tween her thighs as she stood seeking her enemy. I said simply, calmly. I said that I could drain that poison from her wound; I would suck blood from her until she grew pale as the sand and the salt of the sea. In every crevice of her young skin taunt with quick arousal at indignity, I said, my lips would seek her injury and I'd kiss her pains into oblivion. But it became apparent immediately that she'd rather not accept kindness from a stranger. It was in her look. To me, no charity. (To copy or translate this poem, please contact JOHN HORVÁTH JR. ) TRANSLATOR and ILLUSTRATOR WANTED FOR THIS PAGE
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