AE Reiff: "The Ship of The World"

There is no gate inside Yeats’ mouth

When fairyland pops and earth opens up.

Do not see landscapes, measure maps.

Branching visions lie in Dante’s pic.

Everyone likes to ride the sky,

but be spiritually aware.

Eat the ticket.

No camera measures interiors though.

So we rely on Dante more.

Maybe we'll get Blake to skate

the new Pismith, Orc mutations.

 Down to the Waist / Up to the Feet!

Infernal stairs decline a giant race.

 Perplexed as children eat Saturn,

I seen it  pass.

Somewhere the stairs go up where Saturn ate,

But society eats earth down river!

Quench obesity! Giants bulge equator!

The epic world is closer than we know.

Scale an inch to the worlds below.

Munch a mountain, drain a quaff,

poem seepage deep enough.

We have a counterpart in Homer

And pariah Jonah is an owner.

That bubble about a metaphor

In the little world of toxins great

works round from Jonah down to fish.

Save the ship lest everybody drown!

Jonah in the belly is The Ship of the World!

Before he's cast on South Beach late,

throw this outcast into space.

Put on him sins, tie his hands to save

and drive him to the deep beyond.

They never before sent sin to space.

We make a ship a horse or mule,

Too soon will talk of dinosaur.

In this wilderness new invented,

buried before the age began in earth and sea,

this metaphor about a giant metaphor

 prepares reality.




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John Cullen Apotheosis, by AE Reiff