Accidental Man

Shapechanging shiver-world,
Whirlpool of innumerable destructions,
Irresistibly I wish my self into place.
Poised in descent, fortunate shadow,
Something decides me,
Precipitated from the turbulent solution.

Sodden clothes drip on the washing-line.
Grass, meek and invincible, pulses.
My father stands pruning his favourite apple tree.
All things, in time, return to the root,
And tremble again with mysterious commission.
The damp black soil smells of feeling
Caught from a pigeon’s wings.
An appletree’s shade, sly fusty savour,
Tickles, yeasts the doughy mind
And quizzical sensation startles
The moment’s tendril-ends.

Tunnelling through days,
I sacrifice to a preternatural precision,
Sworn to read the inner stranger’s palm.
How to master the correct technique
To seduce each obstacle’s singular gift,
Absorbing until absorbed?

The mysteries of equilibrium
Hold us ransom-
Rich bewilderment,
Feminine sensuality of thought.
Self-swindlers, proud of the mastered trick,
We limp through the amateur theatricals
Of lopsided men.
Evening’s apocalypse tempers me
Where I lease desire,
Husbanding the world under flesh.

Hesitations on the stairway,
Fumbled exchanges…
What feeds the underwater flame?
The self cannot be paraphrased
Or translated,
Or banished to parenthesis.
The philatelist proudly scrutinizes
A triangular stamp;
The butterfly collector scrambles
After a twinkle of wings.