The Us We Feed
The Us We Feed
By Joshua Chalifour
The perturbing laws
of us and of immortels
are pastures
of the innocent god-watchers.
Of the unknowing faces,
of the increate spirit,
all are with
the scythe we give
to sacerdotal chaos.
Your imperious changes to
we, who are by destiny
of flesh cuirass and
not of universe;
until dusk lights on our wills.
The track of apology,
smooth to forge the
censor's diseased mockeries
or you with your stars.
Unaware, you confuse
their fool's eyes/buttocks
on such that a man of genius
clowns beyond us.
While we marry and birth
our delicate lepers of
the civilized jewellery...
how the criminal corrosion stands
upon the possession of poverty
—you are bared.
May our mystic sores turn
on the pulverous passion.
Raw among the wastes, we are
magically luminous in reverse.
If your curious moon
shines to you still, formed
like the brief wind
in the caverns of your
ostracized aboriginal soul,
our beautiful disciplines come
as signals of our crop.
Apology of Genius
By Mina Loy 1
1 Mina Loy, “Apology of Genius,” in The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems of Mina Loy, First edition (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1996).
Ostracized as we are with God
The watchers of the civilized wastes
reverse their signals on our track
Lepers of the moon
all magically diseased
we come among you
innocent
of our luminous sores
unknowing
how perturbing lights
our spirit
on the passion of Man
until you turn on us your smooth fool’s faces
like buttocks bared in aboriginal mockeries
We are the sacerdotal clowns
who feed upon the wind and stars
and pulverous pastures of poverty
Our wills are formed
by curious disciplines
beyond your laws
You may give birth to us
or marry us
the changes of your flesh
are not our destiny—
The cuirass of the soul
still shines—
And we are unaware
if you confuse
such brief
corrosion with possession
In the raw caverns of the Increate
we forge the dusk of Chaos
to that imperious jewellery of the Universe
—the Beautiful—
While to your eyes
A delicate crop
of criminal mystic immortels
stands to the censor’s scythe.