Animè Terror (After Rimbaud)

 

Filthy dawns
I embrace
at
summer fronts
of palaces,
a
number of
palaces, numerous
filth,
pour me dead
water.
Where from?
In the concrete
woods are shadows
. . . bestrewn
about the road,
faces
of
in-
comprehension & scenes
denied
not of teenage
whores fuming live
and warm, natural
breaths. Yet
nothing
and nobody’s stirring
today, none no
more in ’94.
Within plains
narrow &
of silences

are
gasps of
wings suddenly
rising
up to try again.
There is
cool,
pale
light,
unlike
Hiroshima
where hot was
the
atmosphere.
Here
you see
a
flower,
here you see
waterfalls,
pines,
goddesses. Yet
it’s never
heaven.
For
the goddesses’
lingeries hang hopefully
on
every tree’s one barbed branch,

and either little
red riding
heads lie
bloodied
raspingly
at the
loins, or
walk
            about
perfumed, perf-
orming the rites
of marketable
dogs. Across the
plains of silences
and language will
    be ducks’
patterned crow, asking—
    Is this your
big
city? Your
towers, for what? Arena
    domes
as corrupting
shields. And
marble quays,
they’re much
expense—
when
the mutes
among the citizens,
    all
your
city’s
people,
run
about
as beggars, clamber
to the top
of
the steps of the road
in front
of palaces to
be poured on,
your dead water. Where
to?

At the edge
of
this forest,
the
billboards
bearing fruits,
I hunt
the screaming walls
where my
falling
dream
tells me
no nightmare,
in fact
caresses me,
there gets
me back to work.

Upon
awakening, Hiroshima
is
noon . . .
and
heaven-scented.

 

 

—1985-1994

 

 

Copyright © 1999, 2004 Vicente-Ignacio Soria de Veyra. All rights reserved. Readers are welcome to view, save, file and print out single copies of this webpage for their personal use. No reproduction, display, performance, multiple copy, transmission, or distribution of the work herein, or any excerpt, adaptation, abridgment or translation of same, may be made without written permission from the author. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this work will be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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