By Brooklyn Bridge

The diametric gaze of love
and of lovers’ unstinting eyes

so that vision becomes a bridge
Hart Crane carrying his perceptions

in his pocket : poetry is span and projection
It moves on bold heels knowing that

nothing is new under the sun and yet
no two skies are ever the same

a lighter shade of blue or grey or a paler dark
Science has its sesames    poetry too

but poetry has mutinous song that fires
on all cylinders     that breaks in waves

at the base of the towering chalk cliffs
Mountain laurels and Easters of speeding light

the span of consciousness within an earth
drained of its tears    Poetry demands an end

to the fraternal massacre    to the slaughter
of lilies and the perversity of human disdain

The sound-waves launched from her lips
buttressed across the crisp morning air

slipped through the coruscation of the outer ear
penetrated and curled around the spiral cavity

of the cochlea and cosily implanted themselves
in the depths of his mind and his heart

Poetry is pact    is the bread of angels
is love’s purest breath when it so wills to be

John Lyons