.
Snail (size one centimeter), frontal view, Greece: photo by Adamantios, April 2007
Grave root pillow, tung up from grave & wigle at blown up clowd.
Ear turnes close to underlayer of green felt moss & sound of rain dribble thru this layer down to the roots that will tickle my ear.
Hay grave, my toes need cutting so file away in sound curve or
Garbage grave, way above my head, blood will soon trickle in my ear -- no choise but the grave, so cat & sheep are daisey turned.
Train will tug my grave, my breath hueing gentil vapor between weel & track.
So kitten string & ball, jumpe over this mound so gently & cutely
So my toe can curl & become a snail & go curiousely on its way.
1958 NYC
Snail (size one centimeter), frontal view, Greece: photo by Adamantios, April 2007
Make my grave shape of heart so like a flower be free aired & handsome felt,
Grave root pillow, tung up from grave & wigle at blown up clowd.
Ear turnes close to underlayer of green felt moss & sound of rain dribble thru this layer down to the roots that will tickle my ear.
Hay grave, my toes need cutting so file away in sound curve or
Garbage grave, way above my head, blood will soon trickle in my ear -- no choise but the grave, so cat & sheep are daisey turned.
Train will tug my grave, my breath hueing gentil vapor between weel & track.
So kitten string & ball, jumpe over this mound so gently & cutely
So my toe can curl & become a snail & go curiousely on its way.
1958 NYC
Peter Orlovsky: Snail Poem, 1958, from Clean Asshole Poems & Smiling Vegetable Songs, 1978
With a world of things going on today (plus fatigue and allergies, which prove that, all evidence to the contrary aside, it must really be spring), this grabbed me and stays with me. It's really lovely and lives in a world all its own. Inching toward the light is something I can definitely relate to (in my better moments).
ReplyDeleteCurtis, sorry to hear about the stress and allergies. You got out of California just ahead of the latest series of Alaskan fronts, though. We've spent the weekend like snails, trying to find the light at the end of a long tunnel of stealthy microscopic deterioration deep in the timbers of the S.S. Edward Gorey. (At times like this one invokes the spirit of the innately helpful and practical poet Peter Orlovsky.)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, beautiful, beautiful!
ReplyDeleteOh, snail,
climb Mt. Fuji,
but slowly, slowly ...
Issa
Now matter how slowly we go, we can never quite slow down enough to capture the moment, as it's passing...
ReplyDelete(Mt. Fuji has to be there, otherwise what would there be for the snail to climb?)