jim bellamy's songpages ~ Well, in the West (an old-fashioned poem)

Well, in the West (an old-fashioned poem)

portrait of the late great genius poet-author Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Well, in the West,

Where the spangly pleats of Night entwine

With the frowning Horizon's wayward eye,

The carpentry of Dian's sabled stamp

Breaks the sides of the Heavens:

Engulfing mortal trips and traps

In constant shapes of Ceres hue,

Thus drawing all from finite moulds

Towards the edge of pageless creation

Here motions, empty of age, collide with infant resource

Leaping to catch the pulsing breast

Of waves that measure the shores of birth

And murmur patent sanctuary

To all the earth may yearly receive

And endear so dearly to diurnal parts!

How strange to think that we

Are subject to this game of hours;

The runes of our accounts are cast

By flailing tongues of cocks and owls;

And ev'ry thrust of our hearts may weave;

(By sight of Orb and Atlas) is

A bride of tangled vacancies,

Clasped in the deeds of sadness-

And even 'mid the stride of swarthy reason,

Whence breaths and paramours deem to dance,

We are but figures of careless meanings

Whose shades of being are gladly hung

On hooks and blinds of reckless fortunes

And things beyond the natal mask.-

But, lo!, there is a sweetness in the mind

That binds and deifies the shriek of blood,

And weds the cloudy felonies of lungs

To naked knaves of Innocence:-

A feminine sweetness such

As. when bought to serve the pen's occasion,

Defies all lengths of placement,

And gives to lustive titles

A reverie of both hanker and disdain;

Awak'ning sov'reign veins to verbs of honey;

Those verbs that prance upon the spheres

And glide between the coiling moans

That couple the clocks of bed and bier,

And spin the womb of the Universe.

O, dearest Tamzin! Yes,

I speak of Joy: Holy times:-

The breathing fruit of the soul;

Fruit that crowns the quick'ning breeze

Of past and vanished Ages,

Where documents of Love

Are sanctified and serenaded

By trembling flutes and twiring sins

Struck from the beating stars.

Aye! Happy, Happy times,

Sensed in Life's meandering stems;

Issuing forth th' silv'ry threads

Of bright and minstrel diadems:-

Prates of slumb'ring tenderness, that never

Leave the swooping toll of trusted veins.

Dates, sweet Love, that have gather'd ever

From the boiling mountains and the skeins

That feed upon the music of your heart.

Oft in my Days of Tears do I

Relive and bless the laughing hour

When, thro' the veils of Living Sleep,

I wandered 'thwart th' dreamy bowers

Of thine Sirian eyes.

Amid all things mine heart didst lie,

Wi' solitude's fears, athwart rank weeds,

That grow betwixt Life's formless Stave,

And far Adrastea's coil-kissed Map!

Here, storms rose from careless wounds

Wedded by twines of Heavenly tongues;

Wherein there leapt a boundless sea

That coursed beneath a robeless sun:

Caressing hands of frenzied leaves,

And cursing Death's e'er sleeping curve

Of misty moulds and bloody wave,

That men forfend, wi' lusty might,

When hands becalm th' rapine streams,

Yet, wi' foam-wrapped passion, greet,

When Ares swathes th' Night in ash.

'Twas th' Noble Eye of Birth I saw;

A beauteous pool of soft'ning charm,

That seemed to lead th' breath of me

Into a pit of fiery heights;

Where Don, th' Judge of Final Christ,

Sat upon her throne of Joy

And, wi' voice of Purest Rain,

Brushed th' Air with Song,

O, ne'er could I delete the sights

That flew wi' ev'ry stirring bar,

Effusiing plinths of Wizardry

And choking thirsts with greatest sprites

Wi' twists of cordial winds.

On heath, shrub, and rock, mine eyes aligned

And drank th' dews of Heaven's comment,

Conceived 'mid cherub-blade of Light,

That none could meet in earthly folds!

Here, th' raging fruits of Dreams,

E'er blushing wi' Treasures sweet and scarce,

Fell to turfs and flattered me

Wi' fields of fever'd plenty;

Refreshing Cupid's meady crown,

And bearing decline

To Man's filth-sucked device.

Thus failless Love stood Royally there,

As time's timeless Soul, and loud Solicitor;

And Senna's Army-, bad earth's swoons, -

Beheld no sentient Protector.

Ay me ! Sweet Love,

Thy heart is living key

To bounteous Truths of spectres manifold;

Th' golden Throne of Poesy's Sanctuary,

That this thine Hymn doth Serenade-

The plashy thread of Deity,

And all th' sentiments of Being

Are moulded with the constant beat

Of thy vermeil Beauty.

Into thy flowering dream I fell,

As one who'd never felt before

Th' rage of Night and Day entwined

Along the lap of ceaseless sleep:

And mine eye beheld a Face:

An eminence of Feverish Joy

That seemed to feed on Nature's Lymph,

And, Oh, did lift the Soul of Love

Unto a pounding ridge of raptured Song.-

Lo, from hills of Celtic realms, dear Heart, you came

Wi' Don's resounding cataract

Of murm'ring Glow, amid thy fragrant form,

And thine ambrosial bosom rose,

From stealthy lakes and air-tinged Heaths

That Cynthia kissed wi' scented care;

Here, th' dappled face of patient force

Shall twire athwart the staves of May,

And bewitch th' heart wi' sapful tears

Which arose twixt child's red-laden lips-

From tranquil death of velvet dawn

Nur'tring damask'd breaths amid

Th' rose-drawn Diadem of Love.

Here th' Eye of Birth may enfold

A thousand days in momentary gasp,

And swoon forever in Eternity's fixing gaze

Wherein the Mortal Bid is woven whole.

....

jdb 1990.

...

BECAUSE OF KUBLA KHAN?

wow, what with drapers and honey bees come
car-knocking at my frontdoor
easellers of rats crap aside wallets when guns
shoot a crazy mad pharoah with fairy thumbs
and a scryer at a huge window
suffers prophesying birds of war
wow, what with drapers and money seed,
as sin cries high, then tablets under old greed
comes whistling in the West
and a poverty of famililal spies hits feed
and a bayer of skeletal Hermes cedes
softening mind-meads to eremetic leaves

wow, what with dreamers of honeys cum
grinding at a walloped moon
weevillers of granite suck a hollow wound
and a reddener hastens to god's lips
and a deadener of basins
pants in the dark while slaving grey tits
ah ah, my regal days lead me under tombs
ah ah, my seagull lays
delimit puss with fannied flaps and stations
o i am the man god's father was
o i am the Pan your mother was
and eynes lease me to leashes when loss
drags a dairy lamb from a ridiculous cross

yeah, a bud of scissors sizzles down de isle
yeah, a lud of mirrors drizzels under smiles
and a diary monger has to sit and dial a
baby of a loudening soft brain
yeah, a bud of braiders beads aside rain
and, lo lo, lidded butchers serende grain
,.
once aside a mind in a cataracted swirl,
i entertained lost countries made of pearl
once, when stopped, my heart made girls
supper after slowed slippers
and a slowing pavement snake uses curls
to ignite lemon demons with sugar-worlds
and a bedded mind
silences the dreaming dark
and a bay of pure glass succours mined
golden boys that dig into this slaved art
.
a vase-destroyer weakens at the bit
a snipperer of snapers soften cold tits
and melodious lemon smokers use lips
to delve for grips
with ideal crams and the earth outdoors
and, lashy, a venal bosom-cave stores
peeing peering pupils aside sex-wards
and, ah ah o-la, i have supped my pride
and, la la o-la, i have scented coda brides
.and, sea-fastened, a weighted shrill wife
sweats optics for chiffoned shimmyers
and spinney spoons force feed dizziers
of baited bread and eaten sex-drillers
...
i have seen my earth appear denied by
heapers of grey and green; and my sky
hits to spoken stars
and i heard god in his spatial lost car
ah a baby in a scullery skulls gold guys
and guardians come sleeping from high
and a molten maiden swells for thighs
and a bitten candle sinks into salt-pie
and a muttoner of a geesy geezer writhes
under sallowing seas and daughters
...
under thunder once i saw a cell outdoors
clamouring after caging bastard money
la, as i suffered junk then i saw whores
crying after bread and jam and dummies
and, when silence breaks, a bell at sea
sucks a healthy gut and stops sad bees
from stinging waspish hands
la, as i suffered spunk then i heard wards
widening empty lifts from birds
and a mental hiss crashes aside me
..
hangers of deaf slammers heap islands
with daggering missives and blind drams
oo leaders of blind shammers spy edams
cum whimpering at a citadel
and lady leapers jump jackals as a
dawner of a reaper claims infidels. La!
what now for the change of clay
other than a mind in its cage? La!
what now for sages but herbal calves?
...
i swore upon my knees when born
that christs should end my grey form
o-la, i tore a mental reed from dawn
and laden parents fed my skull to a
seizurer whose fast peppered fawn
strapped a blonded mask across me and
patent pussy pendants ride to sleep
..
once above a mind, my fotal fathers
jacked blue blinds with natal retchers
once, as dying died, my fatal mothers
jacked bled drives with rigid cellars
and a heightener of dolls used rivers
of draining rills for pigeon waters
..
the darksome manyana of fevers
weedles under impassionated scans
and the light of dark dances for clams
and the flights of imbecile silver dam
a walnut with a bruised flower; and
sedanic edams dazzle damasks and
giddy gasping granaries grip to grande
baby-boncing eccentric blue pianos
,. as faces flail, then moonish grans
will sweat for a bureau then fall from
hectic earth where piggers abuse guns
..Ohhhhhh

as i have warred after evil nations
then i will smoke a river of pelicans
and rush where i dare not run
and my vaginal cloak hisses for cum
and a caddy ghostly ginny vestal child
weeps, weeps, weeps
ah i have warred after renal patrons
and i have found my earthshock
rending sapphire clay from neat
vase-hunted vagrancies; and

have i come to feed from swallows
or have i defined feeders to sparrows
or have i come to shiver at the gallows
,.,
endlessness kisses a mentalism when
deadliness kisses a menstrulised gem
trendlessness marries wax to hinds
and i will race down candlers to find
nothingness panting like a dead mind's
shanty soaper; and mentalis will grind

everything
down to faloned nothing
and a dummy weight strips off a bulb
for stricken jeeps that drive for lying
baby boatings of blarers and dying
and weevillers widen until smoked rings
shaft after tinterers of easing poked swings
and we gander in the West
and we see inside a carmine dress when
pickers of peas sink brandies from old women
,.,
the avenues of the snuffed sizzle for gemmers
with wanky weavers of both night and day
ah, a crocus fever hisses sweat then decays for
stars of Eden and the scatterers wrought indoors
and lightning loses flexes
and frightning fuses wreck power then drive for
heapers of hems and daddy wretches

and once aside a mind, my head opened wide
and, delved, a bridal wynd swept me into spies
and me and madam macadam will always cry
...oooo painters of promontories kiss dead tides
..ooo, appointers of de pussy pieced yield the East
and riddlers of codal meaty peace
borders baby rock with anointers of a lady-fleece
and my starry sock of a car-jumper
listens to bees where a lover leers from lasers
and i strap a cock across my vernal engines
./
ladeners of razored ravens distance ermine
and crucifying lice sink fleas into keen vermin
?,, mmmmm

THE END?....

Well, in the West (an old-fashioned poem)

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