D. S. Marriott. Dogma.

The poems relate to this African history -- scarcely over our horizon, however broad its dimensions -- as a hymn might relate to a body of sacred history: an intensely emotional outcry alluding to shared knowledge. They are inexplicit, free in handling, traumatic, frightening tales of seizure and becoming.' --Andrew Duncan, Jacket 20

also by D. S. Marriott: Hours into Seasons (1987); Schadenfreude (1988); Floodtide (1989); Clouds & Forges (1991); Airs & Ligatures (1991); Lative (1992)

1-903488-24-9. 22 pp. 2001.  £3.00 / $5.00

I talk only of the sea coiled on the rim of the ear:
a landscape of birds,
                         gathered at low tide,
the many corpses beneath the currents undersea;
which is a proof in itself of life in the midst of reverses.
The loss of those years, the vines the amphora
           the phantasmal light fleeing into evening,---
ghosts, proof of my mind's obsolescence
lost between fury and solitude, nemesis and fate.

Beneath the bowsprit and the tide
a rekindled light starts up in us,
           it is Ethiopia rising and stretching forth,
it is an old man raging to make an end outlive its use,
a last illimitable voyage beyond the endlessness of birth.
           Rising,
there in darkness; the region of the dead
on a calm desolate sea,
land where nations rise near and far, strong and triumphant.

Myself now, a part of all that I met:
the light that defined me when the stars fell
black against a black daytime black again...
                      almost the opposite of madness.
For years we endured isolation
nakedness---driven over the grief-blackened earth---
reaching for a star to take us home:
so why this monumental impossible light, black again?
And why venture into the abyss of the world?
We mirrored the gods'
phantasms as well as rages...like them wanderers and victims.