...music for my eyes...

I bought a book of Michael Ondaatje's (the author who wrote "The English Patient") poetry entitled "The Cinnamon Peeler." What a joy it is to soak in this book! So beautiful. I thought I would share with you one of my favorites so far...

Near Elginburg

3 a.m. on the floor mattress.
In my pyjamas a moth beats frantic
my heart is breaking loose.

I have been dreaming of a man
who places honey on his forehead before sleep
so insects come tempted by liquid
to sip past it into the brain.
In the morning his head contains wings
and the soft skeletons of wasp.

Our suicide into nature.
That man's seduction
so he can beat the itch
against the floor and give in
move among the sad remnants
of those we have destroyed,
the torn code these animals ride to death on.
Grey fly on windowsill
white fish by the dock,
heaved like a slimy bottle into the deep,
to end up as snake
heckled by children and cameras
as he crosses lawns of civilization.

We lie on the floor mattress
lost moths walk on us
waterhole of flesh, want
this humiliation under the moon.
Till in the morning we are surrounded
by dark virtuous ships
sent by the kingdom of the loon.

-Michael Ondaatje