.

But, as the passage proves no hindrance
__To the spirit unappeased and peregrine
__Between two worlds become much like each other,
So I find words I never thought to speak
__In streets I never thought to revisit
__When I left my body on a distant shore.

-T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding II, Four Quartets

Friday 14 October 2011

ANIMAL SPIRITS

Is it true, then, that one fears all that one loves?
These spirits are my awful companions; I can't tell
anyone when they move in me. They
are so mighty they are unclean; it is the end
of cleanliness; it is the great crime.

I can only kill them by becoming them. They are all
I have ever loved or wanted; their hooves and paws smell
of honey and trodden flowers.

Those who do not know me sip their bitter coffee
and mutter of war. They do no know
I am wrestling with the spirits and have almost won.
They do no know I am looking out from the camel's eyes,
out from the eye's of the horses.

It is vile to love the; I will not love them. Look -

My brain is sudden and silent as a wildcat. Lord,
teach me to be lean, and wise. Nothing matters,

nothing matters.

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