Poems by A A Marcoff
| CREATION |
| SNOW AT DAWN |
| the acute light of dawn |
| the cenotaph of dreams |
| the innocence of becoming |
| the sea in question |
| tigers |
| birdlight |
| land, & the river |
| Tanka |
CREATION
In the beginning the earth was the song of a virgin
empty for an age:
her womb was of bamboo & water
& her hair was the wind in the trees:
her eyes were as day & night
the left & the right
& her breasts were as mountains
of bright fertile rock:
she sang & she sang & she sang
of fishes & turtles
whales & sea-horses bearing shells of desire:
And the melody of earth grew substantial:
time took shape with her song
& energised her deepest breath
to bring more light to her ravenous womb:
And at the hour of the wolf
(the gap between night & dawn)
her children emerged of music -
airborn
& pregnant with time again
she sang to them of love:
& her children grew through the stars that were their eyes
& bamboo & water
permeated the land
& the hair of her head
spread across the mountains
& she sang song after song
that turned dust into diamonds
& ashes into birds:
And the rocks are alight with the tongues of living fire
that speak of light to the holograph of darkness:
sing out of the light!
sing out of the dark!
And the tongues of the rocks call the wild horses
to carry men into the mountains of light
& to bring the tongues of living fire
into the minds of the free:
And in every tongue there is an avalanche
of wild white words suffused with heat
& as a token of the visions to come with eyes
the heart of the rock will simply start to beat:
the great holograph of darkness is lit up by gems that speak
A A Marcoff
SNOW AT DAWN
snow falls
hours of snow
& white tigers
in the falling snow
& the stones of light
the snow
becoming
the world
as it drifts into silence
vacant
effortless
empty
resonant
a silence
woven in white dust
the holy fabric
of the dawn
& the white tigers
their prophecy
their eyes of light
the air curved into silence
the stones
the eyes & light of the stones
becoming white
the stillness
becoming
the world
the world of our lives
in the spoken dawn
the white whisper
of the snow
& the deep stones of our eyes
that see into the ground
of our being
& the endless empty light
that turns
this quiet theatre
into white thought
the idea of the snow & winter
dawning on the mind
& the silence
of this snow
that burns everything
this world
this dawn
these hours & hours of snow
A A Marcoff
Published in Acumen issue 52
the acute light of dawn
the cycle of deep-red
accumulates
as morning -
its holy journey:
& the whole ceramic avenue of light & blood becomes
now -
as impact (& sculpture):
a shimmering white testament
of pale voices
the mind
(its prism)
remains
stainless
(in the time being) -
begins
the slow outline
of the steel axiology
expressed
in traces
as light
rising
into thoughts
of violet:
the Eagle Nebula:
O violet genius
of this tungsten
dawn:
O God -
the white level
of thought
coalescing
as the road's rouge tension
within the cut & cluster of the light -
layered
like stars
(or discs of metal
on metal)
the sun
lifts
the world
as a savage white eagle
into the kinetics of awareness -
the morning:
that is/
the surface & mosaic
of the mind
risen
into the precise
gravel & ground
of our internal
radiant
(infinite & objective)
lives
A A Marcoff
the cenotaph of dreams
the unknown flower -
wild
as the wind,
& unknowable
as the miracle of mind
the diameters
of silence:
where tigers roam
like eyes
it is night:
there are
ways into dreaming
in the shadow
of stone
A A Marcoff
Published in Presence issue 29 (2006)
the innocence of becoming
Sperm as white as lightning. Some primal surge. We are. The light is. The
dark absorbs the world as we begin to dream. We sleep. Therefore our dreams
are real.
And the first dawn is fertile. Suns like burning eggs dominate our horizons.
The clouds are alive with rain and a single raven cries in the sky above.
Venture to face. Adventure raw with a potent yolk. Lightning. Suns.
Clouds. Light as we are in the new wilderness of a wild launch or advent.
We run and hunt on the silent plains. The rocks will scream. The sea will sing.
We speak of sharks and stars. Trees surge round the rivers in urgent green
torrent.
Forests.
The seed comes with the wind.
A drum sounds and a distant horn.
Beams of light are sudden and original. We move. We stir. The raven cries
out to our bones. Sense and motive are conditions. The moon is abstruse. The
reality is now and future and mental and genital.
Our presence is legitimate as rain. Witness the planets. We make our song
and must mean it. The spring is legal and the blossom a chorus to our words.
And the words grow like forests - out of water, out of earth, out of lightning
white as sperm.
A A Marcoff
the sea in question
could
we
interpret
the
integrity
of
fishes
when
the
sea
is written
in
the
blue
gospel
of
the
wave?
A A Marcoff
tigers
a theatre
rouge
with cruelty -
a theatre
of tigers
in a blue forest:
their eyes
are like
deep black
roses
& rise
from
the black
snow:
their world
is
a dense parable
of winter -
an intensity
of claw
parallel
with mind -
or
the energy
of
blue coal
burning
with all the blue
radiance
of a raging
apostle:
& the tigers
roam
& glow
like coal
burning
in
the
dark
A A Marcoff
birdlight
two gulls
illuminated
suddenly
in flight –
in
a white sunlight
on
a white morning
in
a moment's masterpiece
ancient
&
now:
this is when
'I am' & 'to be'
become
the white whisper of water –
this river flowing away
into
a far blue grey
just
as
two birds –
in
sudden moments
from
an almost timeless
sky –
become
one with the sun
A A Marcoff
land, & the river
the flower
changes aspect
with the day –
through changing skies & cogencies –
(the shifting of indigo to blue
into violet drift through cloud):
there is a time for petal & colour
to coincide, spring up, & be – lit by a white sun:
it comes as quality, the light,
on deep leaf & ground:
the flower gravitates towards it,
& the sun's bloom & echo come
as waves of light in space: this is God,
this is pure being: see the way
the river cuts through land between the meadows:
it is like steel, & curving,
a collect of shimmer & silk & collage
in which sunrise gathers
its collaborations,
its citrus
potency:
I can touch the flower, forever of now –
this moment of light & petal, clear
with circumstance: the sun is kinetic,
a dawning raw mosaic, calescent:
the river moves towards its end,
water to water, flow to flow:
it is coactive, & conditions the land:
I see a swan search for the sun & fly –
white into light: I see a kingfisher,
distant, down-stream, flash along the surface,
skim the vital air, assertive,
fleeting, wild, then curve
& lift up so suddenly –
brief brilliant
blue
A A Marcoff
Tanka
rays
of sunlight
woven
with the golden song
of a goldfinch
from 'appearances & worlds'
this is the river
it is complete
the dappled light
of early morning
a touch of rain
from 'appearances & worlds'
a grey morning
&
a light rain:
so much of the sky
is gull
from 'Once again the heron'
blossom
in the pink distance
across the hazy valley:
the woods
echo with birds
from 'Once again the heron'
a swan
makes
the sunlight white
as its wings & the river
unfold
from 'Inroads'
autumn world –
the colour of light
kingfishers
bring the sky
to a wing-blue river
from 'Inroads'