ForkWord

Poems by Inchiki

Iapetos Writes

Iapetos
opens his book
to the green page
marked by an ostrich feather
and begins to write:

Sea and Sky
Like two lovers lie
And admire the other's vast temper
For near eternity

Here stands Deucalion
On his brass shoulder
A bead of sinew twinkles.
By the rainbow, over the blue scarf -
He is a Siren's mirage

Taking a casket by its felt key
Sliding into his iron bolt,
Enabling the door to swing to
His torn hand opens -
Revealing an oyster cluster

Gazing into this pearl, I capture his words:

" ... and of over several sparring seas
where man and seagulls cry "I know her"
She only it is I love, with an azure eye
She demolishes my love, the ringing
in my heart. A bell is thrown down
(crying) into the churn as I fish for her
amid turnpike and rope-burn. Mortified
she slips seamlessly into my tasteless mouth
bloody handed to pull me under her bridge
and with her to lie. My face is pressed
into her fate and I am cursed to love
but never know - her rudimentary fabric skirts
of drowned majesty are her armoury!
...I sold my soul to the Manta of the Deep."

The pen leaves a mark and descends
beneath the thin leaves of dust -
it wandered tirelessly there
in the ancient library, downstairs
morose clocks fathoming the hours

Looking in a mirror, I see myself
smug before a green curtain, my works
floating in and out of flooded chambers
on a subsiding breeze-whipped foam,
And feel a hand on my shoulder -
the touch belongs to the Titan.
His ancient face is sealed in bronze
but through thin slits in its burnished steel
breathe perfumed vapours
steaming in the cool dim light

"Welcome to Tartaros, Poet
I brought you here.
Seeking to create yourself with this pen
didn't you admire its fine bright point
and long to pierce the mortal heart?
But have you seen how my pen is?"

In his glove, he lifts the implement
I see the fine tip sparkling
with a faint sort of omega
"Doesn't ink smell like a revolution?"
Leading me down yawning corridors he continues
"Words are the worm-holes
through which my engorged meanings slither.
Beautiful meanings, raw and unadorned
boasting of nothing, they are the soul of ink -
itself the dark and sacrificial blood of holy bulls!"
We arrive at a writing desk before a window
where an illuminated book lies unchecked
"This story is of your time"
I read -

From out o' the wishing well
They emerged, spotted in black hides
of mouths flickering with flamingo flame
And by long iron leaps they flew
Into our world through the red eye
Of new sadness, of ash and confetti
With hands pressed together
Across oceans now they gallop like thunder
Creating palaces of disaster where they pause
To suckle the black milk of our mother's breast
From whose own blood, and hair
They make a thin cake, a currency of blood
On one side "War" the other "Peace"
All as in the image of their dream.

Beyond the far hills, not obscured by rust
Lies a cave, cool and remote
Where sits, to this day
A figure made as if from clay
Beside a ruined colour wheel and flag
And he sees the hordes
Emerging from out of the well of deep wishes
With hands pressed together
He sees the stealthy ravens are streaming
From their oval mount for a feast
And Saint Madonna is collecting her plucky chickens
from the shore of the great pubescent sea, of men
turning as in sleep
To rise before the wall of fire

Closing the pages, Iapetos retires upstairs
onto a high chequered courtyard
to bathe in the milky yellow light of Saturn
while I slink behind a curtain like an animal

***

He leads the solitary life of an old lord.
Sometimes I lose him - there are so many rooms
all with the same green and threadbare carpet -
but he is never far away from me!
One day I find him in his garret
(the circular room is full of wax and destruction:
garden implements mixed with nautical instruments,
lunatics and cotton pickers
high on shelves above a looming desk,
leaf-like blades in rows, batteries of pens
and in a jar, two curious gooseberries)
Iapetos penning out a letter
" Son I had warned you
But you have undone the zip
And let Man fall through..."
feathers the ink well
finding it is reaching its nether
pushes back his chair
only to find I left off writing there

27 Watt (2005)

ForkWord

Poems by Inchiki

Iapetos Writes

27 Watt (2005)

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