from ODES


I

a habitual idea forms in the dusk: songs of a
half illuminated reality - a resting of sorts
on shadow and pass, through forest
floors lit up by the snow and pristine ice,
utensil as a gizmo along forgotten contrivances
and means, washing along sun rays and
colours like a ruby or cherry - a blood wrench
of rose white - a lustre as concoction, it
hangs on branches on the sweet air, in the songs
of birds in open space, in rivers sweeping,
rolling in the helix and spiralling light,
murmuring to an abject silence to the contorted
vistas and twisted explanations - to the visible
intangibles and multitudes of disturbance, a
diagram as charm - drawings, waxed wings
or mutations, pillars to Gods and creations -
describing other mutations and anticipated words -
a dream if you must know in a reflection that tries
to meander in and out and up and down in
each eddy on aspect and desire always desire take it as
red.



II

to anticipate is to form some sort of answer,
as the unrolling of honey bees in spring -
how every sort of colour of amethyst is
possible on an inclination, in the heart of a thistle
a nuance of wings that drifts and soars, or takes
a deep breath and feels winter in the air, it is
taken of the green spirit an army rested by a silver
steam a fly past of nothing near catastrophe, mind
map and angle talk - recall nothing or a red
bud, I must press on with the small talk -
put an ear to the ground - is there anything there -
a captured soul or gifted relic, sentiment
and a siege mentality, capture anything of the past
post operative night owls and nail eyes
and this last line now makes sixteen 



VIII

a distance curbs on an aspect: elimination
floats and dances along moons, stars, fills a
sack and sets it gently upon the tide, perhaps
heaps it over a cliff, throws them at the
clouds for ravens to catch, bird dust
shrouds and inclines, catch me if you can -
be my denunciation or fortune or empire,
dismissal hobbles along empty paths, eats
a solitary and meaningless banquet, suppers
way after midnight on it's knees and face,
soaks a grim reality into twine, and everywhere
flowers come out  seas leap and colours return, ice
eases in the streams along crag lines, thaws
bushes and regrets - a lush rectitude walks through
each new beginning, crackle and hope vi for
proposition to a numb cheek and staring eye -
fascinated by himself revealed on the external
always



XIII

there's always an outline of some ineptitude: a
release, a laitance of ability or something
restless, even on the wooded floor, a shaft of
magpie wing and paper, lift and futility -
a panorama that laughs at gratification, as
foot fell one after another in the white, I'm
in the imagination of a moment somewhere -
can you ever feel it, again there's some
effort that can't be satisfied, an ineffectual
rainbow onion, a man is balancing a wheel
spending time on each spoke, taking small
steel tools and adjustments to rotation, all
around they couldn't quite put their finger
on it - never the birds and the flowers that
wept for Lazarus - for a semblance of something,
anything, the snow lit up the whole wood,
it was amazing that Christmas day, I
imagined tanks in the Dordogne - tan
and black crosses, crashing through trees, oh
please no more of ode or epic, listen to
the walls falling disregard any form of grace



X

what was it that sprung eternal: an
obfuscation and it's assortment of deputation,
thus so innumerable - myriads of globular
glass jars, all sorts of colours and aromas
dead treasures in sugar, an embarkation
on a lemon field, an upland headland
woodland dreamland ruse, gliding in a shaft
of newborn light, faced and acrid on the
still cut moor the burning fells and downs,
a ship drops anchor in this ocean so
blue so spectacular that the gulls shy away,
the mariner tots and rubs his tired eyes -
a silver shore, an azure sky, palm trees, the
sun so hot that the monkey's freeze and
all is green and lush and - tranquillity -
a human breast lingers in the warmth turns
it's bones over and over in the sand, rejoiced
in oyster shells and a barking glare - come
tomorrow deluge a single transmitter, fasten
or release vertigo each leaf and experience
run run

© James McLaughlin 2010