Fixed Ideas
KS of electroplated cubes, dwindling to glitters, Like the other pasture, the trigonometry of marble, Death's candy-bed.
Stone caked on stone, Dry pyramids and racks of iron balls. Life is observed, a precipitate of pellets, Or grammarians freeze it into spar, Their rhomboids, as for instance, the finest crystal Fixing a snowfall under glass.
Gods are laid out In alabaster, with horny cartilage And zinc ribs; or systems of ecstasy Baked into bricks.
There is a gallery of sculpture, Bleached bones of heroes,
Gorgon masks of bushrangers; But the quarries are of more use than this,— Filled with the rolling of huge granite dice, Ideas and judgments: vivisection, the Baptist Church, Good men and bad men, polygamy, birth-control. . . . Frail tinkling rush Water-hair streaming Prickles and glitters Cloudy with bristles River of thought Swimming the pebbles— Undo, loosen your bubbles
Kenneth Slessor
Other author posts
The Ghost
ES of old Spanish wine Pipe at this Inn to-night, Music and candleshine Fill the dim chambers
The Country Ride
TH which has known so many passages Of April air, so many marriages Of strange and lovely atoms breeding light, Never may find again that lost delight In the sharp sky, the frosty deepnesses, There are still birds to barb the silences, There ...
Vesper-Song Of The Reverend Samuel Marsden
MY cure of souls, my cage of brutes, Go lick and learn at these my boots When tainted highways tear a hole, I bid my cobbler welt the sole O, ye that wear the boots of Hell, Shall I not welt a soul as well O, souls that leak with ho...
Sleep
Do you give yourself to me utterly, Body and no-body, flesh and Not as a fugitive, blindly or bitterly, But as a child might, with no other wish
