<prev> <next>  <contents>             Page 15

Whirlpools Of The Wisla

We are discs backwards spinning
an Ashkenazic clock
rending the damask garments of night
fleshly sprockets countering clockwise
our threading fingers, limbs
eyelash mesh mechanisms
as we whirligig 
Hebraic propellers slicing
down in a well of Kabbalist sweat
and your shudder lids hove into view
revolving over the sheets horizon
shoulder's freckled constellations one moment
then dropping away
a wet gong of lips buzzes my clavicle
galactic wheels shedding sparks
a rapturous hour decoded only in astronomy
over the whirlpools of the Wisla
to every future, to when we were young 
curling backward into each other 
somewhere before dawn
The Kinshasa Approach

A vanguard nose of frontier shacks
Kinshasa sniffs the boat warily
until it gleans the nature of our cargo
all-consuming and irresistible
it begins to reel the hull in 
Nazirah and Ekimi
the hunted harbingers
slip past the river patrol

We make the Surgeon's Knot
and sing the almighty blues
it's deep in our blood
listen for it on radios of all lands
you the chosen will hiccup
dance inside and desire the world
insatiably
giving outwards everywhere 
temples of charity and deathless love
the only antidote is absolute
surrender beyond everything