David Dowker

HERACLITEAN FIRE

                                 for Susan Howe

            we who once were
      would word wide webs

In a metaphysical Universe playing with

            fires

Bark be my raiment sparksewn through 
Never into the same flames twice

            *

age of reason and us all spasming

a seizure      or revelation 
categorically

steps out of character   falters 
falls

into caricature      Kali 
-graphic display

of most removed cool

cloistered violence waving tables      War 
wages in faces and famine

manoeuvres between occlusion 
between

any two untenable positions      which 
antidote weighed      (at stake wanting)

becomings and so

holes to blow through   bearings 
only roentgens rising

rads 
and rems      odds of further feminine future

war rages with 
images

forgeries      of orders 
(of verbs)      by the truckload

hordes or herds of words   thunder 
across the plain

plainly illegible

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