Copal

Looking upon it with a sense of dread
Facing it with a sense of dread
Gazing upon it with a sense of dread
Looking upon it with a sense of dread
Facing it with a sense of dread
Larks, carrion crows, ortolans
Turkeys, peacocks, guinea-fowl
Robin Redbreast, thrushes, swans
Edible birds uttering horrible cries
Nocturnal birds, boiled owls
Nocturnal birds, boiled owls
Edible birds uttering horrible cries
Could you swu--
Could you even swallow a boiled owl?
Could you even swallow a boiled owl?
Could you even swallow a boiled owl?
Could you even swallow a boiled owl?
Looking upon it with a sense of dread
Gazing upon it with a sense of dread
Looking right upon it with a sense of dread

The Coppice Meat

The mother tongue
Semblance to waking
Semblance to moving
Semblance to being over with
The mother tongue joining of the drum
Mutter to the dream gutter
The bar of light blinding us at the peak we wait for no longer
Such speech in search of the dead
Only one sound jumping up to thee
They have sent me in search of the dazzling dead
And their face is blurring into mist behind the hill
Only one song, crazed purpose, enactment in the land
What was granted on that first time out over the shadows
They were filling every crooked palace of my eyes' hollows, that look and lunged
On that first walk out
What was spoken first was how all of this
Every least part must be supernaturally clearer, illumined on eternal tables that shift
What was spoken on the first part about the fresh, the vivid, the hole in the vortex
Where worlds pierced ideas with an absolute embraced
And allowed themselves to exist in beauty
What was spoken from moment to moment, revolving in a clear space, without confusion
And the doors opened
The entire map appeared, plan of the whole
Worlds appearing, crashing into perfection like unimaginable powerful and efficient weapons
Stars consume us with longing, boulders reach for us like lovers
And we enter singing; we have gone nowhere
What was seen with a thousand eyes of us, at the brink of all
Suns, glory of mists, cleared from the entryways across the valley floor
And the keepers who wait at the gates of the plan
What was heard in a skeleton's brief aria of obedience
As its rainbow bones paid homage, wing-tip to wing-tip
The ones of the ??? magnificent, crowding to catch with tender clasp
My wisdom which never was
To transport it, with all due pomp
To a distant spot where it may revolve forever on its own delicate pivot
In a style to which it is accustomed, safe from me
Until time is no more
And every gate to the plan and every threshold of every gate
And every approach from the far places
And every cloud that hovers above the plan, desiring wind and the gleaming sky
Where will the cries of the astatic iron bird find us, now that we know
And the shift has shown us, and we are walking with ourselves
Into the shaking air needing nothing
And all being has become as breath over the transfigured spaces?
Into the house of the heart on that first time
Into the plan, through the gate of the first time
Throughout the land I saw you, whom my heart had never hoped to see
And it was all fire, as the first drops of rain fell
And the scents, sliding down the air of the million and one desires of the unnamed god
Penetrated us, who are empty of all wisdom at last
The gate of entry was passed
And night fell over the dissonant ranges
Here, where it all began, as the ground trembles
The wraiths of what was un-god, anything before
Bestows itself prostrate before us, prepared for annihilation
Engraved on the ground where we walk is this warning
"Everything is now destroyed
Do not seek to be anything other than this
You will be divested of every garment until none remain
What is born must become whole by annihilation
By the gates of the first time
By the glittering flight of arrows into all twilights of knowing
By the din of the waning light"
What was spoken, what was heard, what was seen
Beyond the shift