Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Douglas Barbour


The Dolphins in the West Edmonton Mall: 

walking early evening
small australian seaside town
with no purpose
watching the sea
splash rocks  below            see
a porpoise    leap
perfect curve
carved eons ago

            *

            in the pool at West Edmonton
            malled dolphins play short
                        stopped short
                                                whenever they start
            a whitewater skid across a surface so enclosed
            their leaps might curve the same perhaps as always    yet
            they arent leaping       laze
                        up to breathe      curl
            around each other below the surface    touching fast

            the water is kept clean       (is salted ?
                        & they     kept together     do in their way
            play
                        they are consumed        demonstrating
            their exploits at 1:10    4:00    7:30
                                                                                        midway
            between profit & less
                                              than enough room in a short pool in
            the middle of all these stores

            Byzantine politics brought them here
            for byzantine profits                                    what is missing
            is the sea                        what they see
            is missing humanity                & the power to exploit
                                    they seem to play
            up to it               feed well            no
            one knows what they think              lost
            myths                        that 'gong-tormented sea'

            saw                        raw beauty in the early morning
            before the paying crowd in            they play
            tricks
                        with that colored ball floating separate from them all
                        they make
            a person smile    & thus accept the crime
                                    imprisoned
            in a story they will not want to tell as part of
                        their ongoing song            sung
            thru the ages               of humanity

                                                that moment
            ary glimpse in waves of living curve
                                                                                    (the planet
            moving   was
                                     another world
                                                               elsewhere

***

‘turning the body against itself’
               --Monet

 the body            deliberately
out of synch               &
the sluggard oils
almost too thick

the violence of the gentlest
dab            squish                        blob
                                    plop
the oiled colours            slapped
hither  &   yon                 in
each square inch

against all
                 gone before
under            coated                        slap
dash            &      somehow
thoroughly controlled
                                    just
there                        or
                                    there

***
***

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