THOUGHT FLOWERS NAMED
The lamp is lit.
I would return to some calm
Abiding.
But here they come, first a whisp, then wraiths, now raucous echoing gamboling up from the buzz and chink of that wild banquet below. These beeezes: where do they gather their names and faces, become recognised, familiar? Back around what corner do these thoughts cease to be words, and what do they then become?
Sharp and edged,
Glinting bright,
Defined and cherished,
Tools of tongue and eye.
Who and how have they been refined, clothed, acquired status? Language clothes thought, but it is not thought. Simply three noticed feelings: attraction, repulsion, indifference, (atomic and galactic habits, too), the sum of them all. Feelings are what? Pulses of light and reaction along cellular lanes, a dance in a ring, unwatched at twilight. Goblin market, a tumble of shadows.
A web spun
By a spider world
To catch and hold fragments
Of itself.
I am food. I am food. I am food.
I am eater. I am eater. I am eater.
Precocious, petulant they are. Give them no attention! Primadonnas, show-offs. The more you react the more they will play up. Tinnitus, endless ringing, blood and heartbeat, breath, bone. The motor running, only the motor running. A drift of exhaust in the cold, frosty morning.
Underwater streams,
Deeper than worms,
Darker than pleasure.
An instant of dreaming,
A startled crowd of starlings
Take shape, wheeling away.
This river, were it to stop. This wind, were it to cease. And whence did it arise?
Coming over the hill’s smooth crest:
A green forest of birdsong
Spread draped in shaded valley.
Dive in, become lost, cooled and tongue-tied,
Dappled, aimless.
simonhlilly 