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Tuesday, January 18, 2005

More Mina for Erica



Mexican Desert



The belching ghost-wail of the locomotive

trailing her rattling wooden tail

into the jazz-band sunset. . . .



The mountains in a row

set pinnacles of ferocious isolation

under the alien hot heaven



Vegetable cripples of drought

thrust up the parching appeal

cracking open the earth

stump-fingered cacti

and hunch-back palm trees

belabour the cinders of twilight. . . .







Time-Bomb



The   present   moment

is an explosion ,

a scisson

of past and future



leaving

those valorous disreputables ,

the ruins ,



sentinels

in an unknown dawn

strewn with prophecy .



Only the momentary

goggle of death

fixes the fugitive

momentum .






Virgins Plus Curtains Minus Dots



Latin Borghese



Houses hold virgins

The door's on the chain



'Plumb streets with hearts'

'Bore curtains with eyes'



Virgins without dots*

Stare beyond probability



See the men pass

Their hats are not ours

We take a walk

They are going somewhere

And they may look everywhere

Men's eyes look everywhere

Our eyes look out



A great deal of ourselves

We offer to the mirror

Something less to the confessional

The rest to Time

There is so much of it Time

Everything is full of it

Such a long time



Virgins may whisper

'Transparent nightdresses made all of lace'

Virgins may squeak

'My dear I should faint'

Flutter . . . . . flutter . . . . flutter. . . .

. . . . 'And then the man--'

Wasting our giggles

For we have no dots



We have been taught

Love is a god

White with soft wings

Nobody shouts

Virgins for sale

Yet where are our coins

For buying a purchaser

Love is a god

Marriage expensive

A secret well kept

Makes the noise of the world

Nature's arms spread wide

Making room for us

Room for all of us

Somebody who was never

a virgin

Has bolted the door

Put curtains at our windows

See the men pass

They are going somewhere



Fleshes like weeds

Sprout in the light

So much flesh in the world

Wanders at will



Some behind curtains

Throbs to the night

Bait to the stars



Spread it with gold

And carry it home

Against your shirt front

To a shaded light

With the door locked

Against virgins who

Might scratch




* Marriage Potions



[From The Lost Lunar Baedeker, Mina Loy (FSG, 1996)]

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