Magic

MAGIC


is what I am about, the verso,
the other side that means
and the thing that pierces through
changing the condition of the other it beholds
changing the beholding.
O’s lying on their sides
eggs or eyes
to see through

the crack of vision
into the new world
the old one just out of sight
around the corner

of your shoulder
your tender upper arm.
Oriental sapphire our primal sky,
color that renews the eyes

verse means turn back
to the beginning
change direction

build an erection
from the sky down
conquer circumstance by sheer beholding

heavy rain over Victoria,
fairy lights on the great hotel
where on a sunny day one has tea
in a palm court like a hidden garden

garden hidden in the house
woman hidden in the city
become the act of beholding

no subject beholding and no object beheld
no subject and no object, comma,
free,

free means combinatorial,
to count backwards,
respell, conspire,

breathe on bits of string
tie knots in air

free means to spell and cast
runes on circumstance

all this is your material, holy,
sacred species of ordinary things

in all your life you’ll never touch
anything holier than this cheap bread

than this garbage cal full of birdseed
this splinter of pressure-treated wood

peeled off the deck, this bulk-mail envelope,
this matchstick pointing to the moon

lost on the other side of the busy earth
o turn with me
into the timeless remonstrance
the wordless dream of alphabets
free to be things again

so poetry is to go
to get there

verse is a turning back
then turning back again

whirling on the heel of what you said
to see who said it,

answering and whirling back
verse is turning

turn in the furrow of the words
turn in the line
and find

turn over the rock
where terror lurks
legless or many-legged

and this fear gives substance to the rock
without fear no solid thing

magic is all I ever meant
repel the political explanation

only in dreams to the banks dissolve
and the chemical cloud
that’s all that’s left

blow away across the pale
Ukrainian steppes, healed again
of what no politics can change:

the sickness of contempt for the other
which is at the root of capital

whereas magic adores the other
does everything to touch the other
turns inside out to be the other

magic is in love with what is most alternative,
with every change,

any chance to change
into the actual other,
in the other is our hope
and all these men were women once.



Robert Kelly 16 May 2004

Posted over on Modern Review