Tag Archives steamship

DULCE DOMUM

Built well before the Mahdi sacked Khartoum,

like a ledger or the Church of England

our house is square, accommodating. Swifts,

each May, pronounce their southern benison

on ashlar cornerstones and dead masons…

A butterfly, lost in the wintry cellar,

seems closed as death but wings part knowingly.

O peacock eyes, how you seduce from purpose

and time! Imperial birds cry harshly

in paper gardens… At dusk, in indigo,

swifts dissolve. The house is white, seems solid

as a steamship. Darwin and Marx sent more

than smoke up the funnel.

 

 

 

SPEAKING OF STONES

By Posted on 0 Comments

‘For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation: they shall drive ...

THE GLASS OCARINA

By Posted on 0 Comments

Long before the fall of the House of Habsburg, there were certain ...

KAFKA IN BERLIN

By Posted on 0 Comments

The tubercular Franz Kafka, escaping the domestic confines of Prague, spent most ...