I
Looking in to the back of a spoon (as Parmigianino did it)
Trying to pronounce elliptical French at four in the morning
(Or was it German? Or Italian
It was one of the Modernists' stolen tongues, anyway,
And I think that might have been the point
Probably French)
As the sun rose like the moon, or
Like a yawning man's bald head hugged by
The parentheses of the clouds
A boules lawn was being planted, seed by seed
By tortoise men and turtle women, who
– in some months –
Will be closer to the dirt than the tips of the blades ever were.
II
But if the Earth is spinning and flying through the universe
Like a helicopter, then
What is gravity?
I don't know
Who it was who said
"Parenthesis and ellipsis are whole repetitions,
Full of themselves. Full of them, selves"
But they were right
(presumably, hence the marks).
Time blinks
Flinches uncomfortably
Infinity has changed from
A frustrating mathematical impossibility to
A figure-eight on its side.
Through the columns, the stilletos
upholding culture,
All conspires to seem composed.
Denim and nylon lying
by the fountains
Are blended to form an unnatural sky-blue.
A Norse god skating across the watertop.
The hundred conversations blur into one
Unarmingly ethereal chord.
All conspires to seem poetically obscure.
A quatrain at the foot of Nelson's Column:
Vous etês priés de ne pas nourir les oiseaux.
No dar de comer a las palomas.
Bitte die Tauben nicht füttern.
A drop from The Waste Land
or on it.
This feeling will repeat,
Every 'now' and every 'then',
Every 'here' and every 'there'.
But it soon fades
when passing McDonalds.
The voices are distilled:
In the womb the women come and go
Talking of Michael Jackson's nose.
Please.
Do not feed the pigeons.
