Читать книгу Mezzaluna - Michele Leggott - Страница 10

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“Where exactly are we?”

INCANDESCENT LACUNAE FLUORESCE AT A TOUCH DESIRE TORQUES DILOQUENT PEARL CURVES LUMENS CON BRIO ALIGHT NO BODY EMBRACES ACHELESS DESIRE ELSE NOT SENSE MY GARDENS LAMELLAE TO BEE DESIDERATE MOUTH BRIGHT ALMOND ABEILLE AMYGDALA AH OH ORIOLES ROSEATE SANGLOTS LIKE LITTORAL COMEDY SWEET AND PELAGIC AMEN ONTO LOGICAL DELIQUESCENCE OR LICKETY SPIT DELIGHT FISHTAILS DEEP TROPES SQUIRT SQUID SUCK OCTOPI PULL ANEMONES GULP AURELIA GASPS GOOSEBERRY VISCERA HOOT COELENTERATE SOUP SIP SUP FOLLOW HER UP SPIRULA SPIRULA THE HARD BIT IS GETTING ASHORE WITH YOUR HYDROPHILE PURLING DELIGHT INCUNABULA RAPT IN THE DARK WITHOUT

Micromelismata

Blue Irises

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I wanted to mouth you all over

spring clouds spring rain spring

tenderness of afternoons spent

blazing trails to this

place where breath roars through

the famous architecture of a poet’s ear

Rose and peony buds and tongue

ichthyous tumble honey and pearl—

the runner’s foot has touched and adored

wistaria sprang after you, figs tipped

green air astounded by your passage

to the audient quays of the city

Now it begins, another voyage after nemesis

blue-eyed with the distance of it all

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I didn’t know about this passion

for oh she is also mine

delirium tympanis from the Portuguese

wind in her hair alongside us here

on the deck unhidden she slows your reading down

Fine ground darkness pours into the vessel

beans and flowers adorn the fall—

ichor! ichor! drink to the eyes locked on yours

the mouth that smiles and will speak for itself

I have always done the talking and she

put the words in my mouth saying do melisma

like sunlight be melisma like no sunlight pressed

redness before dark print an iris on her

& do melisma like sunlight astir oh & os etc

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From the corner of this mouth take

kisses that begin in moonlight

and pitch slow fire over a history of you

reeling in the universe Rhapsode

you and I have some walking to do, some

stitching together of the story so far, its feat

of silence, of sleeping lightly and listening

for the touch that outstrips all sense

in the hour before dawn Look we have come

to the walled garden See how the roses burn!

The lovers in the fountain spoon each other up

their drenched talk stretches the library resources

and when pubis and jawbone snick into place

you face my delight an uncontrollable smile

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Honeyed learning! I traced her once

to an island in spring, pointilliste mouse-ear

drifting down the margins Then she was

phlyctena in the eye of the sea-ear reworking

a disturbance in my name I found wild choral

allusions and scents that drew a white bee

to not-madness in the folds of her blue gown

This morning the whole world is wet wistaria

battered gutters running and everything drowning drunk

extends a big hand for the reprise

Which comes Up the road on small trees

is a honey blue inflorescence I can’t name

When the gardeners say cyanotis trust your ears

though rain fall into an open mouth

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She made him a porpoise gills a-snort

because it was so hard to configure that body

The words weren’t there or they rolled over

and supplied mermaids and mariners For him

the language is a woman’s body and she

will stand out in the rain a hundred years

running it back at him Hast ’ou seen the rose

in the steeldust (or swansdown ever?) Have

you seen a falcon stoop? Hast thou found a nest

softer than cunnus? Can yee see it brusle

like a Swan? O so white! O so soft! O so sweet

is she The sonneteer coughs sneaks

another look at her dolphin scores out

the ellipse after his vibrant tail

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within the temple gate and you knew

she was just delicious cooking up a storm

like this in the big kitchen of your heart

The bee in the fox-glove, the mouth on the nipple

Words! and be forgiven hot kisses translated

with cool accuracy She ripples past his lilly

in a Christal to get at a thyme-burning bee

shut up in a crystalline Perfect footwork

Bobble down that track loverboy they’re bringing

out the focaccia bread studded with olives

and a rough red to match your breathing

She’s a contrejour effect on the glittering sea

baby on the breast and a smile that makes your heart stop

Yes we bear sons They remember milk and honey

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Blue irises after dark

driving lamplight and Venice-glass

into a fine distraction : bise in a crystal line

wanting to know what you know and why

there’s a smear of milk on my shirt so long

after weaning these heroes of eros

I planted incendiary kisses on solemn mouths

all over the island of matchless greed

whose trees see and know this and it grows

bees who mistake its name in a line of fire

run to delicate helices where they dance

orientation Then what is before us

in the night wind where irises calibrate desire

and the rhyme is a voice like sunlight?

honeybee

Apex you’ll come to one fine morning

set with that breakfast milk on the island steps

a full feast of fresh air under your belt

It’s a small island, turtle in the channel

rare for the latitude, the islanders touchy

about a fragile domestic economy Two

of them bang away at an extension to the house

dreamed up last night and being paid for

in green dollars The Friday night pizzas

are legendary if you know which boat to get

and there on the rockface is the aretaloger’s sign

sans me fatiguer ni de jour ni de nuit—

a little dairy factory by the name of Isis Lactans

pumping out soft cheeses of a truly divine nature

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We could all go some more we could go down

for it ourselves and come back on the Cream Run

one quay at a time, mangos bagels wisdom

from the markets where you lean on one elbow

after making love and begin to make

the universe dooby doux to a tune that suits

your ripening sense of history

Going out for the makings, staying in to eat

mouth to mouth, why was it lost most

when we needed that contagion in the telling?

There is still the special place on her head

where they touch her for more of the story

while back in bed a sleep of hands and hearts

is airing nectar in all the generous mouths

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How beautiful in jandals, o prince’s daughter

the motive bones of your finely dusted feet

on the road to the cape and back

many summers past small clips of paradise

In the dark doorway the Fire Chief, a stir

of silver buttons and a ceremonial axe

as he walks into the picture again His are the gifts

you are learning to take from the ballerina plate

piled high between you in all of his houses

Sometimes the regalia signifies, sometimes

it’s just a couple of beers over lunch

watching your seventeen-year-old self descend

from the tree with the big nest of epiphytic lilies