2/26/06 11:52 pm
The Seven Cities Of Cibola
A collage of poems
From
The cuttings of an anthology
For Jaimie
Contents:
1. New York
2. Torino
3. Delhi
4. Buenos Aires
5. Costa Mesa
6. St. Petersburg
7. Paris
THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA
“Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken
Or Like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific - and all his men
Look’d at each with a wild surmise -
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. “
- Keats
New York
A lock of orange grass grows
Out of the crack in the paving stones
On the corner of 31st
And third.
In the sun sits Saxefrage
On stones in Central
Park, Prospering lichen
Where there's damp
But breaking asphalt
From within:
Calvatea.
Torino
Embedded in the earth,
The chrome trolleytrack
Is at once both knife
and wound.
The Lacerated back
Of Corso Bramante
Ridden by a brace
Of silver tram-cars.
Turning a dark corner
I am blinded by
A staff of light imprinted
Upon pillars.
Fencing the austere alabast
Of Piazza Castello,
The silent cast of pillars
Now graded with age.
Some are identified
By their mask, others not
Known until it slips
Under a porticoed
Walkway a dark-maned
Horse peacefully drinks
From the vat in which rests
Its horseman's whip.
Delhi
Each broken figure is at once
Both headstone
And corpse.
The subtle, delicate wrist
Of a prostrate statue is
Braceleted by the thorned
Cane of a rosebush;
The palm
Passively cupping
A rose.
Buenos Aires
Tufts of paper in the desert
Blowing freely with
The windswept sands.
We read of Borges'
'Of exactitude in science'.
Later upon exiting the subway, I turn
To the north, then turn
The map upside
Down.
Beauty breaks that
Which holds it,
Strains with vitality
To be held.
A split plant-pot of
Withered petunias
On a first-floor windowsill
In La Boca.
Beneath; the soft
Plaint of dead leaves
In restless motion
Across an open case
Of steps.
Costa Mesa
She is a burning rose,
As much of the flame
As of the flower.
Stalks of light reached across
The table so that strips
Of dust on the window
Were briefly illuminated.
In a slender glass
A turban of tulip petals
Is tenderly brushed
By the flower of
Her Shadow.
To write life upon
That blank skin,
My signature there
In the mark of love.
She is her own self-portrait:
Each day the brushstroke
Bolder, each gentle flourish
Itself facsimile.
St.Petersburg
An unpared wall
The colour only
Of its dirt, is
Branded by an iron
Of bare impress.
Removed from a
Shop-front: a faded
Signpost, the pastelled
Legend for a cigar
Dealer. Uncovered:
The clean stencil left
Upon vestal stone.
The pink door is ajar.
Beyond it:
An intricate metal lattice
Of locked shutters
Finely poised.
She reads a passage
From Shklovsky:
Her voice is composed,
Yet in the key
Of fitful music,
The words of which;
Less beautiful than
Their song.
Paris
The reredos of Paris;
An emblem
Of graves distinct
In pools of leaden
rainwater.
A calendula of light
Pressed upon a
Bare wall, flowerless
But for broken stucco
Weathered into the likeness
Of marigolds.
Attached to a bough;
Leaves too light
To fall, too frail
To cast shadow
Outside a cafe on
Boulevard Montparnasse:
A single flower is
Caught in an ivied
Trellis, each red petal
Turns rapidly
In the wind.
A soft skin, both
Dark curtain and
Light canvas.
In the window of a mansard
Facing Rue Marbeuf;
A blind drawn down
For the evening.
Against its screen are
The pitched silhouettes
Of two figures cut
Out of the light.
.................................................
Birds wheeled back
In soft circuity of
Flight and the Pacific
Retreated once more
Unto Itself.
FIN
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}