Sunday, August 1, 2010

The Labyrinth

Robert P. Baird (2010)

Torn turned and tattered
Bowed burned and battered
I took untensed time by the teeth
And bade it bear me banking
Out over the walled welter
cities and the sea
Through the lightsmocked birdpocked cloudcocked sky
To leave me light on the lilting planetesimal.

The stone walls wailed and whimpered
The bold stars paled and dimpled
Godgone time gathered to a grunt
And bore me bled and breaking
On past parted palisades
windows and the trees
Over a windcloaked nightsoaked starpoked sea
To drop me where? Deep in a decadent's dream.


2 comments:

dan said...

from Poetry magazine (July/August 2010)

welter

noun
1. a confused mass; a jumble: a welter of papers and magazines.
2. Confusion; turmoil.

verb
1. To wallow, roll, or toss about, as in mud or high seas.
2. To lie soaked in a liquid.
3. To roll and surge, as the sea.

A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure.

ethan said...

I like the comparison of sea and space/sky. It's interesting that space doesn't have the same suffocating feeling as the sea. I mean we couldn't really breathe out there either.