YOU'VE TO I'VE

It is not Hummingbird who
flies on quantity not quality,
disdaining possession of each grasp

of wind-bidding bowers... who soars Th'Heights
to be free, O heifer without a halt: gript in his self-

advancing frenzy (no sooner self-possessed
than self-divested--for the better) of his best
... in some unimaginable double-negative

thinking desolate soot he can't afford not to be
(petty in his smallness) and caught up

in the illusion of going ahead with it
through images in retrogression, in translation's

inverted points, grappling relationships, in
thaumaturgy of trees trying to charm their shade

& wrinkling waves through the universe
explicitly shapeless, staggering & stagnant

in th'terrible integrals of his Strength
hammering down the nails that hold

the brain (lost amongst its many
splintered words) is not th'Hummingbird

but the Vulture overhead mining Time's precious
compliments a-grave, disdaining to be possessed

in his very grasping--instead: bubbles
in procession ... just touring the empty

head, O Humanity like brightness unobtained
still in the darkness--your bloodstains & sweat,

your dirges like cups of hair, your cold-
levelling avalanche, your endless sometimes,

your cabinets stuffed with destinies, your
lurking lusts, armies stones after stones,

inanimate ignorance, unrecognizable lightnings,
heroes-designate, perilous legs, poets'

incorporeal pots, between the twilights
withered & wrought with age... stands

... Who! the fountain that pours out space
to the done outspread (confetti fullfledged

in empty promises) like rubies braiding
with unceasing brooks... that stark lagoon--The Day,

meant to be lucid, instead bandaged in the fevered
juices of despairs it bred, O Man
Certainty's bastard

... your images (the bog's
arguments... none of which, taken on its own,
mean anything,                  

but)                    
       ... relaxed into the plenitude
of this contention--Chaos' discipline (that:

Possession is not of The Beasts but of the trinkets
that please them) Sorrow's acceptable

circumcision                    

        ... bathes with the beauty
of their wane the growth of Man, yes: The Ashes'
ridiculous ghost, Understanding's autonomous,

the cute crab that was spat out into being
from the deepest cosmic echo of God's utter once!

... who, by his kind dying, gives life & length
to the mortal harvests forever outstretched

& showering in the rejoicing of its self-
questioning is bathed... The Blood that baptizes

our Progress away from the invisible
swamps of the Past like a grave (The Present

high & dry): not Quantity the measure
of our Death ... but Quality the meaning

of our living spreads Verse's beautiful
procedures, Derision's dun stains, Intent's
puzzling precisions, Smile's deliriums,
Ambition's bad perfumes, Acceptance's

indispensable scars, the shadows' unshakable
shepherding (through The Hush
full of small marshes), the white's sudden
swans & the blood's deliberate buzzards,

always: Itself's Utmost (dimmed to the indomitable
ashes within) swept by the winds of the full
to the hollow, th'motionless wings
of its miracle like Ocean ... towards

The Future, and washing away Vision's
unending regiments, Sight's sorry troops... we've

bred (like so many bastards), O Man

O Man that cannot shame himself collectively,
O men that cannot escape individual blame!