John Cotton
Adrift
The beads of your words
Unstrung, beware they could send
Your meaning tumbling.
Adrift
In a doubtful vessel
With unaccustomed card and compass,
Lines loosed
After a Herbert-like reversed thunder,
An anti-Damascus lightning.
Words taken from you -
‘Who steals my purse -’
But your very beginning filched!
Meaning gone!
Lines blurring on the page,
To respond with a rough slavering
In an attempt to avoid
Toppling over the cusp of your reality.
You wade ashore
To a misty strand-line
Of a vaguely familiar world,
You put your arm
Into the sleeve of your jacket
To find it still empty,
Hanging loosely
Like a bird flapping its wings
Desperately to stay on the ground.
Small landmarks suggest recognition,
But distances are uncertain.
At best it is an oblique reality,
As, if you think of it, it was before,
Not only the shadows in the cave an illusion
But the cave itself.
Page(s) 94
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