Poetry

excitation à la mode, an applied form
spirits on the move
high water;
vibrations in a pursuit; a persuasion
a displacement of this type, static, charted
internal; a sensation, an oscillation
 
of functions now frequented
wholly
by the ancestral
pumps / chains / pulleys / turbines
a sudden wave, velocity;
it is time —
amoral exemplar gone,
quaker belts and springs
 
*******
 
on bourne bridge:
 
what did the boreal owls say?
what did the number indices say?
what did they say about wuwei?
 
the water running
and half the world
and afraid to fall in love;
 
the case histories, for example
a conversion chart
 
 
* This poem first appeared in the literary journal "Dear Sir". It was written as an ekphrastic quasi-transliterative response to a poem by Murari about Mt. Kailasa, described in Sanskrit Poetry From Vidyakara’s “Treasury” (trans. Daniel H. H. Ingalls) as “one of the peaks of the Himalaya, which is said to rise as high as or higher than the sun’s orbit… important as the dwelling place of Siva and Parvati”. I began this poem seated at the stone boat and tea house at The Chinese Garden in Singapore, a visit I had not made in more than 25 years.