Beauty is an accusation. Nature
Herself has turned metaphysical.
Skull bears witness, proper
& perfect. Viper to socket, startles
me into alertness. Profane
& beauty are not in opposition –
Mediocrity is the world’s welter. Flame
On the alter, from dulled procession
The age demanded an image of its
Accelerated grimace. I’d be a fool
Not to open my mind. Don’t pity
The age if I mirror it. I want to pull
Nature into vanity. To lead back.
Let the skull crack. Let the wind speak.
Made out of lines from New Selected Poems and Translations by Ezra Pound, Ed. Richard Sieburth. New Directions Press, 2010 and Early Writings: Poems and Prose by Ezra Pound. Penguin Books, 2005.
Originally published in Watershed Review.
Valerie reading “Small Seams” for Underline Poetry.