poemimage

Did not the fisherman go to the end,

as one fantasizes one might,

in dignity & sacrifice.

Did not the fisherman go to the end

resisting stone pillars transported by iron wheels

echoing a terrible power.

Did not the fisherman steer the vessel,

loaded with mysteriously shaped cargo,

away from the whale & her calf.

Did not the fisherman blow into a prehistoric 

shell, architectural & coagulated,

born of the turbulent ocean.

Born of hunger & loss.

& Did not the fisherman go to the end.

As invisible frequencies ricochet

invading the bones of the innocent.

& Diving into hunger and loss.

& Targeting the spiritual password at the

root & crown of human imagination.

Incandescent golden ink

& iridescent golden ink

become

a lion,

a madwoman,

a forest.

Or a chiaroscuro art film,

as the fisherman kneels, in ashes,

summoning the mystery power.

& Did not the fisherman go to the end.

The muscles in his fearless gold-tinted heart

heave & conceive & receive coded messages.

& The talk show host coughing up a string of unknown words

twisting himself into contortions of vinegary laughter.

& A vintage typewriter blown into the air lands upside down,

in rubble on the hillside, beside a spoon & a shoe.

Did not the fisherman comfort a starving horse buried in rubble & fleas.

Rolling & dragging away the debris.

Did not the fisherman push a ladder to the gardener balancing a bag of seeds.

Obsidian air streaming out a jutting chasm beneath an olive tree.

Pressurized eons blasting out chakras curving the spine of time.

Sunglasses reflect the point of no return.

A jury of citizens request the legal definition of genocide.

A tree, thought lost forever, sending forth green twigs.

& The conception of a child on a starry night beneath ancient lamplight.

& The beginning begins again.

Did not the fisherman go to the end

with a rope between his teeth.

A rope erupting rose thorns.

Did not the fisherman’s gold-tinted heart transmit rays of the rose

with a promise to return.

& The beginning begins again.

When his family opens a heavy door to greet him.

When their eyes meet.

When an atom, silvery-pale as a dandelion puffball,

& embedded with a sacred language,

navigates the round towers of a vanished people,

& the nests of the vanished birds,

& The Great Library of Alexandria.

& A scribe’s brush dipped in golden ink

becomes a divining pure eagle of fire.

& The talk show host coughing up a string of unknown words

twisting himself into contortions of vinegary laughter.

& The engraved markings on a wooden stick

blink a coded message, undulating

a serpentine prophecy.

Curvilinear as a triple spiral

engraved in stone.

Did not the fisherman conjure power by dint of his scent, sweat & blood.

Telegraph poles in formation move in a holographic vapour.

Read the telegram.

Pressurized eons blasting out chakras curving the spine of time.

Read the telegram again.

Did not the fisherman go to the end,

as one fantasizes one might,

in dignity & sacrifice.