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Sunday 11 September 2011

Vessel


.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Liu_Ding.jpg

Ding (tripod cauldron), Late Shang Dynasty: photo by Mountain, 27 February 2006 (Shanghai Museum)




It sat there on the shoulders,
an unidentified object,
an unexpected guest.

It sat there
for a while, and then it stood
there for a while, where it was.

It was full of air
for a while, and then
for a while it was

full of nothing, and
then for a while,
blood.




http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Ding_with_animal_mask.jpg

Ding (tripod cauldron) with animal mask, early western Zhou: photo by Mountain, 27 February 2006 (Shanghai Museum)

6 comments:

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

". . .full of air
for a while, and then
for a while it was

full of nothing, and
then for a while,
blood"

9.11

grey whiteness of fog against invisible
ridge, shadowed green of leaf on branch
in foreground, wave sounding in channel

space which is the abstract
form of presence, not

sometimes different, formed
in such cases, vision

grey white fog against invisible ridge,
cormorant flapping across toward point

vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras) said...

Masterful in its handling--especially in how the omission of the implied "full of" at the end of the penultimate line brings the reader face-to-face with his archetypal thirst for sustenance.

TC said...

Rätsel

Das Ding ist voller Blut, was kann so mehr wünschen?

vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras) said...

wish full,
filled

ACravan said...

Savoring the fullness of all of this in the half-light here now is really, really great. Kind of like seeing and at the same time remembering a number of movies you've enjoyed that share a theme that are unspooling and projecting simultaneously. Curtis

TC said...

A full Ding is like a bucket of blood -- it could almost pass for a human head.

(Best kept at a low simmer.)