“Watch the Lame Beast Turn” by G.C. Waldrep | Blackbird v19n2

print preview
back G.C. WALDREP

Watch the Lame Beast Turn
from elegy for simone weil

it must be pure, but not a proof—

a glass waiting, tied as fret-lens
to the field’s scabby haunch—

without war comes
nothing burning, shadow-leavens
in their tollhouses

lean against that spacious drum—

its resinous anthem—
contagious, as every act affirms—

in the eaves & at the altar, the /I/
bears a pilot’s breath
taken deep through clear flame—

house-to-house go
the ripe kings with their candles—

I set the traps—

at vespers, for the ferrous dead—

   Canto Selah
   three from elegy for simone weil
         Renault / Paris / 1935
         Watch the Lame Beast Turn
         Adelma (Harrisville, N.H.)
   Merleau-Ponty