Grav Domma Vit Aether

Black geometric shadows of houses
And priceless armies of women
Expanding like Lycra begin to sing
While batting eyelashes
Thru a concentration of rainbows;
World stops being soup of death
Becomes old veridian,

Love hung like rubies in a cave,
Upside-down like bats their faces
Odd like pumpkins –

Or as impossible as
A baby whistling in the Arctic.


Poem drafted from earlier one 20/10/09. Title is in adapted Latin meaning something like: heavy (important/serious), woman (girl/mistress), life (way of life), universe (time). I've changed it a lot and the structure now stands like a vase-shape, the first stanza as geometric as the shadows. It shrinks; 7,3,2 in lines. The best image was the baby in the Arctic, which by moving to the end is more poignant. I think it's the best image of impossibility I've thought of. The only line I hate is the 'life stops being soup of death,' because the rhythm is different.



You can see how it's come to be this poem from the older ones:

20/10

Impossible things
Like a baby whistling in the Arctic;
Crucified freaks in pinstripes screaming:
I want to die,
I want to live thru oceans
Of red and purple clouds
Of hot evening sunshine –

Black geometric shadows of houses
And priceless armies of women
Expanding like Lycra begin to sing
While batting eyelashes
Thru a concentration of rainbows;
World stops being soup of death
Becomes old veridian,

Love hung like rubies in a cave,
Upside-down like bats their faces
Odd like pumpkins –
I see above a mossy rock
Or an atom in the dust.


AND, this one 10/8, the earlist version, first written by merging two pieces of writing together, which I probably wasn't going to use. I can't remember, but they might have just been notes or lines or just discarded poems.

When I do not love the world I will be alive
And no one will see me awaken
Barefoot and bare like a bloody newborn
I do believe things are impossible
Like a baby whistling in the Arctic –

To love a world that loves no one
But its self loving another is crazy
Afterwards it was odd to be trained in certain
Ways these freaks in pinstripes crucified
Screaming 'I want to die,'

Meaning 'I want to love,' travelling thru oceans
Of red and purple clouds of hot evening sunshine –
Because what beautiful things
Are so beautiful they are possible –

Above geometric black shadows of houses,
And priceless armies of women expanding
Like Lycra begin to sing while batting
Eyelashes thru a concentration of rainbows

And this world stops being a soup of death
And becomes miles and miles of old veridian,
In you love hung like rubies in a cave,
Upside-down like bats their faces odd like pumpkins –

My heart beats thru its skin
All I am is skin, skeleton and a heart,
I am almost nothing; hot petals fall and burn white,
Forces the bells to recede,

Why am I given back the moments of your stillborn?
And no one but me can see miles above
A rock with moss, or an atom in the dust.