Sunday, 2 October 2022

Axial Perspectives - Epic Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

 



Axial Perspectives

 

 

is there something out of nothing     nor neither nothingness

but only

                                    the sudden evaporation of something into nothing

a wave unleashed in between

the transformation of otherness beyond reach

 

            a movement               

into an ever deepening complexity

where time riots in demiurge




 & the forest signals the moon its promise of return

 

a point of view

to listen to the hum of tectonic plates  

 

an ice floe adrift that remembers

more than a farewell but a tomorrow

before it was parted in the sea listening to the dolphins cries

cork & tarp in their wounds       

their mercurial poison in our blood

you who were music to the forest of the sea          

                        *                     

where now the polar bear must change its skin

*

so must we

*

the frozen candelabra

a carousel of swifts

 

 

 

two birds fly from their eyes

viewers

like kites at fight in the skies

 

a solitary winner will fall

after the fall                what

is the purpose of flight

 

what fear when you enter the light

 

the sea asked the sky

& earth

replied             O flight am i

your birth or death

 

but

 

 

flight had taken refuge in the forest

 


but

 

where there was no city therein

 

only ruins of tombstones' unknown

origins as if encrypted in a nothingness                      as if the breath

of the forest                like a migrant

bird were the arc of the arctic

where the reindeer now roam

lost

to slowly pass away

 

as when

 

  

the flame burnt through

 

who

 

did the creature of the fell turn from

back to the flame but you O Sapiens

 

your fate rises and falls on questions

you cannot answer        your origins

 

but

 

still you are entombed in our memory

for we know we will come again

from before

 

 

 

the person of the forest         is a discourse of persons

 

all signals  a mockery but  for us

you grew into aliens

already jealous of flight

already in fear of our advance

as if you would outrun it

your big toe claw clawing at the rock

where now you have forgotten our embrace

 

 

 

  how deep is your embedded memory

in your entangled embodiment

of the moment

 

 

you came with the machine

but to what extent does that enhance

our presence

 

the forest is an orchestration

it is also an instrumentation

but a tree is not a tool

it is a person

 

 

 

 between the overworld

& underworld

 

there is equivocation

 

it is you O blood

 

 

 

once when

the gods were only immanence

persona painted their existence

until they faded

even as shadows fade

into their own darkness

where we begin

where shadows are cast

 

 

 

perspective is a multi natural process

in the mind of the planet everything has an affinity

 

it will outlast our fear our fear as monstrous as God

 

all is fear

 

to walk through the avenue of fire

come unto me

for ye shall inherit the earth

as i stand on the highway to see

the roar of the traffic pass

 

as if a storm we had ridden

 

 

 

when the what            the who we were       had already been taken

at the entrance to the shore

 

mother australopithecus

lucy in the sky with diamonds

trapped now on the avenue

a spectacle to the jingle of chains

 

O feet why do i want you

i'd rather have wings on my heels

 

 

 


Beluga            white dolphin without wing

 

homing            drawing succour beneath the ice floe

 

where the river meets the sea

downstream from the forest

song of the ocean a sonic alphabet

a web of sound we have yet to know

 

moving northward with nowhere to go

            until the gulf of mexico

            here today       gone tomorrow

 

your palace of ice

 

 

 

i listen now for your call lost to us

 

still i am here upon the shore

 

or perhaps you outlive us all

deep upon the sea bed's eddies

don't you already know? we listen

but do not understand at all

 

 

in those warm seas where you might roam

who is the predator & who is the prey?

 

beyond our simulation

our simulacra

 anthropocene

 

 

 

return the pastureland to nature

 

we ask too much of the cow

given the little we give back

 

let the predator   the herbivore   the pollinator

return

let the buffalo roam

 

O detritus spreader  - but no

let the cow provide

 

 

 

the anthropocene is not only importuning

 

 it is invading

there could be in the world

a discourse worldwide

but who speaks first

why does a plant become a tree

 

 our hunger is as

the hunger of the polar bear’s

eating us

 

more than a threat to an endangered species

we were that

that made you what you are

 on a shoal of whales

 

 

 

 

Space hangs on

the corners of existence

like curtains gathering

the ghosts of memories

 

 

 

 

existence forges its own signature

like a fake painting

 

 

 

i stand in homage beneath its heraldry

 

 

as a stranger or as a ghost

 

 

you who have been so long before me

so many banners so many costumes

 

 

 

 

so many hosts to exit from this frame

 

 

 

like a poacher caught in its own snare

our liberties taken our liberties given

 

 

 

my children’s children

if you return to the forest

i’ll be outborne from it

 

 

their oppressed whom from before they’d cannibalised

in plunder

became their slave predicated non - human

in the Polis

 

as deaf as death the bugle blows

 

 

 

 

the difference between         

 

in the abyss of echoes

 

predator & prey

oppressor & oppressed

those who built the gods

made them also fall

 

to a harvest of dead zones

our epiphanies outraged

 

 

 

 

no destination Mars

 

return to the Jaguar Moon

 

what is perpetuation

one is many is everyone

is everything is a person

a matter of perspective

 

 

 

she alone will adorn the many         Jaguar Moon

 

 

  

evolution is but diversity

 

 

it will always come again

but sapiens are but rapiens

now their remains

 

 

if the world should come again        then come O Jaguar Moon

 



 the sleek Brazilian jaguar does not in hef aboreal gloom

distill so rank a feline smell as grishkin in a drawing room


 

 

who is grishkin          O Jaguar Moon

when she’s feline       & we her prey

unless we outlive the day

her kiss that sips our blood like nectar

 

 

 


forest feline fir purring

dusks dawns this wastrel man

his vagrant days that like tattered

rags clothe his face

as autumn leaves fall

 

 

 

  

we walk together now to listen talk

where both our persons are now

diminished

 before the tempest of ice

 

 

& fire consumes us once more

 

but soft ye now I will feed you with my blood

 

 

 

 

let me breathe your music as my words

already bawdy in the day

with the pantomime we play

on this our funeral day – hooray

 

 

i care not for the molecules of kings

nor the stratagem of regimes

where we walk diminished in our pain

 

 

 

 

& yet I say we will regain & you

 

will come again          jaguar moon

forest feline purring your dawn dusk’s born

hawthorn & the rowan            the red berries growing

 

 

 

 

a van flashes by our simulacra

i have nothing to offer you

but my blood in  your  music

 

 

 

 

beyond our most unreasonable crime

 

(before the human territorial voice in)

invades & after

the sun shines it’s sudden shine

our end begins

as I stumble through the straw

but this is beech place not pine

though i guess it’s the same decline

 

in the end                                   & the skyline rang out release me

 

 








Robin Ouzman Hislop is a retired TEFL teacher and translator who lives in Avila Spain and Yorkshire UK. He is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com . He is author of several poetry book collections and has translated from Spanish the poetry works of Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo. You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com, which features mostly his video poems and translated authors. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

Robin Ouzman Hislop's poetics cultivate a relationship between ecological & mindbody processes and experimental work. He's co-authored translations of contemporary Spanish poets into English and written and performed numerous audio visual video poems.



 

 

 

 




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