deep south 2013
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dsj poetry
Caddis
In the slough of trough the rough of sough
in the silence the river seeped a self,
pools spooled like black tape.
Compassion was over again.
There was a case that world encased,
that a stone sobbed to dream itself
harder. From dismay to dismember
this self's cladded head
snorkelled the talmuddy timesheats.
I caulked my archaic torso
bivvy-bagged in shadowash
or opened a door in mud
bathrobed in innature as
longtheriver the tanged and tined
proceded by barge of state,
tubed hornpipes partuttered
shallow-shanties, laid hornpipes.
You will be cured they sang, in
the time it takes the fossils to swim
away, then meltamorphed
into a malevolice enchoir
of neuromantic shadow:
foldoverol the coagula
page of day turned rustily
gunships songcycled that
tocometime is suturesque, involves
stilldeath in the stickleblack
headhatch where glovends of
a bricoleur's incunabulus are brawn
to the netherword in protolith. Then
they shadowdrowned sursuits
of ziplock corpse. Their song? Crimea River.
Giles Goodland was born in Taunton, took a D. Phil at Oxford, and has published several books of poetry including What the Things Sang (Shearsman, 2009) Gloss (Knives Forks and Spoons Press, 2011) and The Dumb Messengers (Salt, 2012). He works in Oxford as a lexicographer and lives in West London.
