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Arrive at Easterwine

by R. A. Lafferty

Nine if by land and eleven by sea
And infinite blazes a-birthing me.

Check and encounter and rivalry hurled,
A king and a giant will clatter the world.

The Valery urchin, the Valery Witch,
And loaded with sex -- but Whatever and Which?

Primordial creatures have stumbled, and stake
The Title to World on the Turn of the Snake.

A guggenheim goof, a serendipy slug,
A rushing-out river from emptiest jug.

A Charles in the shadow, unshadowed and wise:
He sows the mad millet and scatters his eyes.

A special event, Aloys of the ridge,
Who doubted the stream and believed in the bridge.

Of bonfire that scorches, of a trammel that binds,
A limes that limits, and a mill that grinds.

Of a sudden arrival, and crystalline flame,
Over the edges and out of the frame.

-- to battle the demons with elegant dread:
And corniest Corn who returned from the dead.

-- nor found our true kith or angelical kin,
or ever discovered that shape that we're in.

These are the worlds all tattered and torn,
And hot-cakes made for the still unborn.

A three-failure base, and a harvest to glean
Oh, drop a salt tear for a lonesome machine!

Gather together in your heart all terrors, re-capture all details. Salvation is a circle -- close it!

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Second Thoughts - David Handy - 1/17/06