Michele Leggott – Ⅱ
certain pockets of resistance
1
rogue elements in the mountains
we will hunt them down
we will deny the ground
o wilderness can I make a space enough
there is a local order
a cherry-picker memorising childhood
enchanting order
enjoining
Sojourner Truth a cosmogram
hersonality
as if I heard my God rustling in the tops of the mulberry-trees
arts of defence and affirmation
hide and thrive
cradle King Pleasure
in the quilts of slave women
a language of visual astonishment
sometimes visual glossolalia
spiritual oscillography
Johnny the Conqueroo
High John the Conqueror
ecstacy trembles the shoulder-blades
mayembo and zakama
ecstatic dance
sister, thee is the hardest one I ever wrote for
dream of three books and a holy one
angelic assistants to talk to the books
tender skin
holy nights
troubling the text as bliss
every time I shake
a chaise tongue
a riff on birds
2
dissent sewn into the pockets
of the host
she of if I can’t dance in your revolution
glamorising memory
a trackers’ almanac
footsteps on heaven’s roof
sister I am what you wanted
cut-out petals surrounding the gem
ideal for a quick promenade
we are criminals even like Jesus Socrates Galileo
the very stars hanging in the heavens
Bruno and John Brown
wielding not a sword nor a gun or a bomb
the moral rights of the authors
have been asserted
symbol and harbinger
glamorously memorised
I have held ideas all my life
is there only the resistance which means the gun
the bayonet the bomb or flying machine?
may not the people simply fold their hands
declare we will not fight when we do not believe
the necessity of war
a chaste tongue
1
rogue elements in the mountains
we will hunt them down
we will deny the ground
o wilderness can I make a space enough
there is a local order
a cherry-picker memorising childhood
enchanting order
enjoining
Sojourner Truth a cosmogram
hersonality
as if I heard my God rustling in the tops of the mulberry-trees
arts of defence and affirmation
hide and thrive
cradle King Pleasure
in the quilts of slave women
a language of visual astonishment
sometimes visual glossolalia
spiritual oscillography
Johnny the Conqueroo
High John the Conqueror
ecstacy trembles the shoulder-blades
mayembo and zakama
ecstatic dance
sister, thee is the hardest one I ever wrote for
dream of three books and a holy one
angelic assistants to talk to the books
tender skin
holy nights
troubling the text as bliss
every time I shake
a chaise tongue
a riff on birds
2
dissent sewn into the pockets
of the host
she of if I can’t dance in your revolution
glamorising memory
a trackers’ almanac
footsteps on heaven’s roof
sister I am what you wanted
cut-out petals surrounding the gem
ideal for a quick promenade
we are criminals even like Jesus Socrates Galileo
the very stars hanging in the heavens
Bruno and John Brown
wielding not a sword nor a gun or a bomb
the moral rights of the authors
have been asserted
symbol and harbinger
glamorously memorised
I have held ideas all my life
is there only the resistance which means the gun
the bayonet the bomb or flying machine?
may not the people simply fold their hands
declare we will not fight when we do not believe
the necessity of war
a chaste tongue
