FORBIDDEN PLANET
August ’45: first words I ever read,
fire on fire in a small town newspaper,
ATOMIC BOMB; the virgin in the midnight sky,
Trinity looming brighter than a thousand suns:
The Bellerophon pattern is being woven again.
The jubilant light bulb in the leaden squash court
where hell’s pencils scribbled on whitening bones,
was mass times light’s speed squared,
for floral prints burned into living skin:
The Bellerophon pattern is being woven again.
The man in the porkpie hat is still on line
with the Boston brahmin in the silent cathedral,
searching the line for another overload,
who has become death, destroyer of worlds:
The Bellerophon pattern is being woven again.
The workmen scream in the melting roof-tar,
the dim survivors writhe in their bloody flux.
The sage of Chernobyl with rainbow eyes
weaves fire on fire to see God robed in God:
The Bellerophon pattern is being woven again.