Things Happen Without Any Conscious Design

THINGS HAPPEN WITHOUT ANY CONSCIOUS DESIGN

A choreographer of signifieds,
the ballet took place
On a rice-paper, gilt-edged scroll, unrolled,
Finite, infinite,
Smooth, stippled,
Telluric, tel quel, tenebrous, a twilight tulip,

All the dancers wore azure shoes, the stockings,
Waterfalls

Of

Snowflakes, disconnected atmospheres of faraways,
The earth rendered a radical, radial forever,

But when spotlight seen
The pink powder on faces
Prowled

On gray gravel, blued, paths purled through
Dark bamboo,
The tissue-paper, backlit moon
Burned catechisms
Of a cautious chorus of chained clarinets attired
In chartreuse dresses.

If were as if the agora were an aporia. None
Could speak the familiar language of commerce
And coercion. Communication was glossolalia,
Grandiloquent as
The grand daughters of conjunctions, colons,
Semicolons, or commas.

Glossesd by swamp savants,
Cypress
Tree frogs,
So that every sound that arose
From a graphic inscription
Had
A pale green tint.

-

Duane Locke

Posted over on The Sound of Poetry Review