Aught, no. 15 (2006)


Nicholas Manning

calligraphy

this
black rose
is * a symbol
of this Life : its dying needs
in a blank necessity relinquished * to burnished
beauty * now burnt . . . one raw red renting
relished rose : its flesh abiding (unto
always) where a single
Light *
abandons us
in its aching ardent
intent . . . O simple mystery !
O unsilent world ! . . . as these giving reeds
which slowly waver in
their as * so ancient
calligraphy . . .
the diagonal marks : equilateral impresses
which upon these now imagined pages
mark a stranger Light : one bright
-er still * than all cold dark’s
art : the silken * secret :
my glimmering
heart

 

 

waste is what the sad Will keeps

waste
is what the sad Will keeps
alive : these new lands in their ever-
shifting * palls of sands
to out my desert’s
desolation’s *
shades . . .
one * leaf * one
moving curl across the plains’
affecting nights . . . while the leaves
have all but faded here : taken my
love * and the * love
-liness of all
those times I held you
and the sweet snow covered * our awaiting
cheeks * in a thousand remembered
breaths . . . silver novas now
above the slow
-moving stream : while the pale pink blossoms
envelop you . . . (there was no talk
of constancy : out our own
unreal world : such
dreams !)
then the frozen roads * the new winter :
perspectives of a rival blue . . . then the raven
in the woods : the blue solitary rose : the flames among
the remembered burdens * which I willed away :
dragging me from out * my wasting
deep : from out my own
(c)old ashes : from
out * my
sleep

 


Copyright © 2006, by the author. All rights reserved.
Return to Aught, no. 15, contents