Lanny Quarles

The High Stone Sawtooth of Double Excess


you are Mr. Fang’s lover
you, and
in the bright shower of useless days
which wends its spray from down off the mountain
Chuang Tzu's carnival honeysuckle rose
a gnarling

standing tall for sprawl
to block the path
whose face wood be
a would end tornado
the tour nadiring
around the bends
rising too fast to be scene
and save its samples
they confer
around an unholy magnet
no will confess

tides
the many meaning one
in sicknames
courtesy

clue
what towers oft
is in the same tribe
the black sun
which the strange romantic
touched a stick to
poking it to test

are you in there
old thing
and all the old coins
have pictures on them
of that ugly old stick

which makes of repellent larvae
the beautiful forms of words
sewn deeply in the skin

thou shalt have nothing before me
thou shalt have me only
unto the end

this rare punctum
period
like an all devouring
whole.

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