Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ICICLES, by ALFRED FRANCIS KREYMBORG


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ICICLES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Puppets dangle from the tips of her glances
Last Line: In darkest africa, they club her to death.
Subject(s): Ice; Puppets; Marionettes


Puppets dangle from the tips of her glances.
Milady has a taste for tittivating menfolk.
Their legs stretch for a jump many times the length of their bodies.
They hang from their toes fashioned to claws fastened round twigs.
They are vouchsafed eyes to penetrate the density of what they deem, wisdom.
Intuition has grounded her in the ultimate congruities.
Obviously, she admits more than one proportionate predilection.
The grasshopper, the bat and the owl are simply three of the although
entertaining, always ephemeral variations.
Other men have been known to tighten into buds, only to loosen to spreading
lotuses.
To assume the outer corrugations, only to wilt to the inner sweetness, of
pineapples.
To twist into cactus shapes, only to flower toward purple mist.
They are nimble or static in accordance with her design upon them.
She decides upon invention, and they compose themselves into notes and rests, or
shadows and interstices.
Or turn from dust to clay to granite to clay to dust.
The very faintest of rhythms about the very smallest of mouths, the sole
betrayal of the artist.
The same subtle movement delighting in the parallel process of compo and
decomposition.
Secret spectator of the many-ringed circus of clowns and baboons and trapezists
and tumblers and bare-back riders vaulting through fire-hoops.
The hoops twirled by looks of encouragement flicked from the tips of whip-
lashes.
One man of interest the protean protagonist, the gamut of actor and acted upon.
One thing many things gyrating for the pleasure of puppetry.
One conceited, self-centered atom glorying in the cosmos her favor confers.
Milady is indigenous to every soil and climate, every star and planet.
In enlightened America, a fetich more prevalent than God the Almighty.
In darkest Africa, they club her to death.





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