(one of a number of older poems of mine I'm currently playing around
with. Comments welcome)
Spiritus
meaning breath-tickle
on the stop of the throat.
Gusting, almost
weightless, on the tongue
feathery, barbed
by the sibilant push
to plosive expulsion
and hissed tut.
Arrow aimed high,
vapour-twine, spur
of steam that sets
the heart's valve
pumping, the blood's
hydraulics lifting,
as a cloud's substance
rising, coughed
in the primitive bellows
of the ancient lung.
Ardour of juniper,
pneuma-familiar.
Word-soul housed
as body-guest,
as in sarkos,
where Greek economy eats
the final place of flesh.
--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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