To rattle semantic seeds:
To bury the word, the kernel of fire,
In
the body of Ceres:
poem, poem
Spilling the water and wine,
Spilling the fire.
*
Shake the book like a branch,
Detaching a phrase:
Voices and laughter,
Dancing and tambourines.
This is the winter solstice,
Who will awaken the stones?
Shake the book, detaching a word:
Pollywug, poison, periwig ...
Say it: a penance of words.
*
But the huddled men in the alleys,
The huddled men in the squares
&
the mosques,
They took my gems and my grave-clothes.
I was covered with poems.
In
the cen ter of incandescence,
In
the column of noon,
I was ringed with sand and insomnia.
I was covered with poems.
*
