Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, REDISCOVERY, by THOMAS MCGRATH


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

REDISCOVERY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Once more I go over your earthly body
Last Line: Waiting a marriage of heaven and hell in the bed of this world
Subject(s): Beauty; Explorers; Sex; Women; Exploring; Discovery; Discoverers


Once more I go over your earthly body:
Come out of the tent of your hair, surprised by the strength of your neck --
That road of ivory and moonlight.
Acropolis of your brow -- I look for the Persian ponies!
And then your eyes: close-up -- out of focus like mine --
These haunted lakes where I see myself rising from another life:
My life on the tenth continent where I count stones for a living ...
None of them shining with the blue of passports.
Your mouth is soft as your cunt and invites me in,
But I go my journey as I have before and will again ...

Shoulders under the cloud of your hair like sacred mountains
My tribe has always worshipped...
and then the hills of your breasts --
Which are neither big nor little: the merest perfection:
Each one the size of my hand and the weight of my heart!
The little owls that house at the points of those breasts
Are wakeful now -- the lookouts are alert and rise to meet me.
They offer me tincture of bread and a little salt --
As they stand, each in her ring -- the little birds of your breasts
Which I take in my mouth as you take mine in yours.

A hint of civet there, as if wild things had crossed a meadow
Just after a light rain...
and deep in your breasts I hear
The secret fountains, water of life, the milk my body
Aches to set flowing -- "honey of generation" Yeats
Said.
Then: the open flower of your mouth and the white bees
Of your teeth that gather my honey from parishes far and near.
Throughout my now-blossoming flesh and into the hive of my cock...

Ah, but you are a long woman, my Slim, my Silky.
I can never travel you all -- not in one night -- or a life --
But I go my impossible pilgrimage, my holy voyage,
Enjoying the landscapes. My eyes, open or closed --
I know every highlight of this golden road and every halt and historic
Landmark we put there!
It is slow travel,
by tongue.
I am fed and famished in this burning snow!
Not even love is enough! I send out my soul-cock:
With our bodies ablaze we are fucking on all the astral planes!

And by that light I go on burning, fainting and burning --
At my priestly labors: blessing the coves and coasts of your body.
O, my Again-Found Land: like a friar of Magellan I rove
Over and inward on this fiery plain: breathing, alive,
In atmospheres others would die in -- my own and yours -- eating
Only the celestial salt sublimed from our mutual sweat.
And now I have come to our Southern Cross, where the hairs on your belly,
Golden, glint a lighter gold than the gold sheen of your flesh!
Here all directions change and new constellations are born!

Vain efforts ...
The lovers' groan and pant, frantic to get beyond
Body.
And spirit laughs or shivers
trembling
like a virgin bride:
Waiting a marriage of heaven and hell in the bed of this world.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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