Togo chasm
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I have come through hardwoods, from the road that circles the island. Alone with a thousand jagged spires sharply grey against the sky and sea. The vast empty sea, east to Pablo’s to Hart Crane slipping into the Caribbean Celan finding refuge in the Seine, Federico face down in a hillside grave. The horizon line interrupted by an ineffable mood. White top waves of a deeper blue, and spray salted, white, spews high above the cliffs. The cliffs. In this place I sit alone with every poet I have ever known.
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Alongside Brancusi spires I am heeled and scuffed in time names impressed upon me on the way to Togo chasm. A tent maker in sandals threads his pearls in philosophic quatrains. Carl Sandburg in cream loafers sings I am the grass let me work.
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Delicate moon, a yellow thief that steals the night. Immense light waxing each leaf, each stone. Claws scuttle and scrape and break the brittle bones of trees. Swarms descend in a mesh of sound every cave a black scream. The moon is a thief that steals the wind from tall ships the ebb and flow from these booming cliffs.
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