ARANYAKA
O what reality is your light in my eyes,
A glass could not—ought not tell lies.
Has a curvature causeth this view
Distorted, or the willing to keep
Enduring a warm mantra sleep?
What is a woman here,
If she isn’t you.
My opaque perspective betrays the facts
So nothing changes, no—not even that
Path you surely had sourced,
Now with all that you’ve told,
‘Neath the floorboards of my soul
Is a rapturous red fire,
A black burning holocaust.
My sweet-smelling garments soaked in fuel,
O here we are—the mirror and the waiting-fool!
This was long, way before so—
You see: to be disinherited is performance art,
We multiply zeros in hope for a spark.
I’m the only one who sees you
Even if you go.
Everybody wants you here to-day,
Perforce stolen moments now dwindle away.
What vile caprice seeps and bleeds
From your autostereogram—stop, urgently!
Closing my eyes is the same truth as our vergence
Fallacy: yet without it
I’ll cease
And cease to be.
(Fouth draft)
Dedicated to S.P., February 11, 1963.
