Michael Palmer Poems

Write this. We have burned all their villages

Write this. We have burned all the villages and the people in them
...

He painted the mountain over and over again
from his place in the cave, agape
at the light, its absence, the mantled
skull with blue-tinted hollows, wren-
...

It is scribbled along the body
Impossible even to say a word

An alphabet has been stored beneath the ground
...

Who is to say
that the House of Tongues is not that place
where rats swarm around your feet
under blooming sofas
...

In the Empire of Light
the water's completely dry

floating on a surface of itself
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The order of islands here
If you take it

will I give it back
at two o'clock
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I asked the Master of Shadows
wherefore and wherefrom

but he said that art was short
and life was long
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As if by saying "morning" on January 8th
the light would be set forward
along the megalophonous shore
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He stopped part way across the field to
sit down and rest. An eagle
descended from the sky and an angel with the face of death
...

(for two voices)


Let's see, how could you describe this to a listener? How can I describe this to our listeners? My head is in a steel vise I have been on a long voyage—a sea voyage—I have been travelling, sailing in a white ship, the
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