These brick buildings,
well they won't help us now.
It's not what the soul wants.
The soul wants to open up
Coconut shells and rain from clouds
and hang leafy shells on your ears as an engagement ring.
The Hungarian tribes inside it are unfrozen by the wandering Danube.
They are on their way to the black sea to wash their rusty hands clean
Of the poison the stag men cursed them with
For dripping the cave dark without homage.
Their hands' ache is released by the goddess of the river
Second cousin to Athena due to be married any day now
To the sea's never ending unbounded completeness.
The hand that skims the shoals learns Russian
Under the water and can speak to the wood carp now
As the whole caravan is guided eastward by the alps breath.
Eli's sister is swept down the Blue Ridges to the village
That she spent her childhood running from
To spin cotton into gold.
A thread long enough to stretch the Atlantic and be sold.
She's happy to have work again but has reseigned herself
Of ever marrying.
The soul doesn't want these things. The hand only wants water
And the nose only the red and orange leaves
Floating on the God of the Appalachian's breath.
But she will come back. If you pray enough they shall release her.
We'll sit in coffee shops in Paris all night writing lines
Hoping the girl shall find him and the string reach the Hungarians in time.
What do the poet's strike out at when they sleep?
Do they think when they dream
Or only dream of sleeping with her
When the journey has been made
And the cave stags can rise up their sacred hole again
Lighting the darkness in the world above?
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