Monday, 8 February 2016

Asides to Walt Whitman



Asides to Walt Whitman, where Brooklyn Ferry
Intersects the Seventh Circle of Dante's Hell

East of the moon               dawn's fuse ignites
                                across blue steel cumulus
& higher still
                                                a war plane's glint
its contrail connecting coasts
towards Gaza    towards Aleppo
                                                                                in the Syrian camps
                the stink of babies three days dead
in Sudan              the boy
                                                                staring back at the camera
his belly
                like a poisoned pup's
& refugees           & terror cells                       & the thrump thrump
                                of Apache rotors
                                                                at each blade tip the dust-devil vortex
& shares shifting
for dollars
                                in Brooklyn         the sex-slave crèche
                                                                the AmEx card
                its golden encompassing fire
across the Sea of Tranquillity        a shadow
                ghost footprints
a bardic technology remaindered
out of mind
& we                      here       at war's end
                                                                                & where the war begins
                                the moon now a watermark          fading
                before the starry mass
                                its fired hydrogen winds                our skulls
alight with our shame

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