the kill happened on the initial sheet,
which some other poem insisted is
the playing floor concealing the butchered earth
the kill left ashes, paper them freely
they were unfrequented matter anyhow
and too long truant from literary wreckers
there are thimbles now on the playing floor
paper wreckage buy dead with thimbles
they discovered your travels were false, sailor
they spun your tales to the other side
and the thimbles' heads served as models
for these lines: O thou in the earth
play not at living -- not waves, not dawn,
but the butchered earth, thyself carriest
seafarers home again, here's dirt kelpie,
the worst spinning-wheel outside all rushy home
this is behind one and each hurry-things
there's a spinning-wheel now on the playing floor
this is a storm no bird has ever haunted, nor kelpie below
to feel it, nor waves, nor dawn, nor butchered earth
to hide it away, it is the mouth's foundation, crammed
between finny jumps, with the sunset goes its dust
swerve much does this dim story, an old store of
bones, aye, a squeak sack, it belongs amongst coals
it belongs in some other poem insisting the pitiable
earth will be soon enough be sky in Heaven, and in
that sky swims the dirt kelpie - a hundred was its cheeks,
a thousand was its horns, and at last, at long long last
there's a dirt kelpie now on the playing floor
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