I am here at the beginning when
the heat melts the palms aloft,
here where the servants badly rend
pizzas ever again, twisting songs of
all they go to the springs for, always
go the thousandthn time, ever
go for the ghostly thou.
Wile-y, the thou, acting like: I’m awake but
these spice-blown brows know’st knots no sailor never
knew for the new pilgrims roaming, forgetting,
rocking me, oh me, laundering my duds
in a torment of fancy French detergent,
watching history howl with no exit
brains cloven dry the wiles,
or is it simply the pining whiles?
Am I not
the wily sprite born in a pineheart
core of the wood, heartpine,
what you want your cranium made of,
walls and floors scented of a real
thing, where you can step and dance
while ogres for centuries remember that day
on the Campo dei Fiori when
stuck in the corner was Marie
in her cheap gold cartouche measuring
for beetles where toads would question most everything?
Look for a real?
No, hence my brow spiced.
Yes, I was here the whiles it took, here at the get-go.
Tell me how holds now the authoritative commandment pure and amusing?
Who vanishes for perplexity, the great dear afterwards inconceivable?
And where are unbounded powers?
Scattered among all stanzas of knowledge?
No, announce me Buddha wheel, him able to receive doubt,
whose days have abundant light,
whose nights plentiful dark,
who born in the pines on a bed of needles,
longleaf pine, rosiny mildewed rampant with beetles
and toads
and from there I flew
and now here I am
at the beginning again.
Sketchbook drawing by Santos-Dumont, used with permission.
studio arago 