Meditating Rhino

Da questa artificiosa carne.
- Andrea Zanzotta


From this insubstantial flesh
From transient sensations
From this horn of shaved sand
From sessile breakfasts and silences
From sunlight which strikes my wheat-stalk eyelashes
From all this which is nothing
From all this which is everything
From armor plating slapping together like tiles
From the ball peen hammer of my brain
From the umbrella tree of contemplation

Thought, like a stoneware pot,
Floats down the river of the sky
Toward the cloudless towers of Lahore.


- John Gilgun