William Burford
"SIR, YOU AND I HAVE LOVED-"*
Cue for the loveless, who desecrates:
Mirage, believed blue mirror shimmering salvation
To the traveler infinitely more miles parched than
His tongue-hanging, double humped camel, called dromedary,
Who reminds- thirst whirls the mind in industrious circles-
Of a brand of dates. Where dates are
is
water: logic, followed by
Laughter that in a desert one
is
very hard up for .... clots like slow
vomit
In the lungs. Astray in a Sahara one hears oneself going gradually
Madder than Charles Lamb's hatter: while rubbing my eyes to
Brighten the blurred promise, See! I gesture away my pith
Protection from the sun, and the sun
is
a strict punisher
Of inferior fashion. Mirage, believed blue mirror shimmering a song:
The hatter's such an elusive rabbit
Rommel dispatched his desert rats
CHAsing, RAcing the maze of the ways of the waste
Mirage, believed blue mirror shimmering the end of respiration.
Cue for the lover, who lauds:
No great thrust as of that ram-head Roman
Shoulder drove. I need no overwhelming, none
But the hush of the touch of your fingertip
Spinning down, then up, until around me Love,
*
From Shakespeare's
Antony and Cleopatra.
54
