The Transcendental Friend | 2001-03

[ Truth ]

[ Flammable ]

[ Becomes Red ]

[ Dream of ]

[ Bone ]

[ Tooth ]

[ Matter ]

[ Nota Bene ]

In the Dream of Dying Cephalopods

Cuttlefish feathers & things
invented by sound & light like
the Great Spangled Fritillary monarch, and magnitude
of scales, what lies in inner and outer margins of such
wings "that came with soft
alarm, like hurtless light," and the numberous thunder
of veins

—Eleni Sikelianos, from The California Poem

* * *

Unfolder
Jonathan Skinner

the ardent ending
monarch's ardor began
a large wedge-shaped
cloud in the spring
thousands were taking
a fluent thoughtful nap
re nocturene, alone
all of them witch-doctors
or in a Chinese dream
woken-up philosophers
the single golden rule
overarches, ark or pendant
limpidity of clouds

overlord my monarch
the length of two thumbs
light fills the windows
clings to sun struts
grows outward, leafing
monarch emerges steeled
blood jams into wings
all that tickling insect
clasped to cock's fuzz
is a trance, inside of syrups
a poison swapped about
bitter-tasting heart's
spasm, an orange avoid

a million pages turning
the library of spring
spotted with shadows
the piteous monarch
propagates, replenishes
ejaculates homeward
to completion in summer
the monarch's a cloud
woven of monarchs, one
leaf journey's length
pulsating on, from ghosts
and milkweed deposits
a universe of monarchs

seeded the whole field
larvae munching larvae
pods, grow milkweed fat
moult to tiger-stripes
toxin bright, leaf eating
regals, the skin splits
pupates, recycles into
gold-studded chrysalis
to force out the thorax
pulled free stretching
hardening new struts
rests, monarch, waits
listening to scythes

lazy winter monarch
on a warm day ventures
out for nectar, rubber
in the saps & rough stems
loves the poisoned milky
fields, sleepy his "eyes"
open above the coccyx
looking for black-smudged
veiny queens, wooed
by the harmfully harmless
lauzengiers, wing deep
slips between sign & referent
are not what they seem

monarch's no mimic
no midas, this goldfeeler
melts you to the ore
nympho or mendicant
exasperating progress
discovered by millions
with wing covered sexes
gets sticky all over
in Zitacuaro it's quiet
piteous monarch, go
roving, unfolding, trees
branched into flames
would that you lasted