Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










In Pursuit of the Curtain Rod by Stephen Sturgeon

A man tracked a curtain rod that blazed through a forest,
and as he furiously traveled, with him there went

the hair of Jesus’ head inching along
a river of skulls a black girl swam,
bells in the sun at cascade and ring,
tallow swept up from a fast-burning palm
,
Britain’s crown jewels stitching one hundred shirt collars,
moldering tree stumps that suckled a boy,
philosophical plants strapped under root cellars,
our dream’s last rest batted to scraps as a toy,
Magdalene’s glance at the petulant sky,
communities of mirrors, flush in séance,
blacksmiths joining the ends of barn hay,
the trial of youth hidden under long pants,
Lucifer’s fingers on the strings of our harm,
conciliatory pause adjudicating blame,
and the mane of the lion flashing after the lamb,

however the night was calm.
However the night was, the night was calm

in the screeching air tearing the road
walked in pursuit of the curtain rod.

As the man followed the rushing curtain rod,
he lingered for danger, and on the way the noise

of tremulous cyclones falling through a shirtsleeve,
an orchestra that entered a whiskey decanter,
the many-times dead at reluctance to grieve,
pillows’ suffocation and harlequins’ banter,
mariachi jousting the knights of the table,
a box alone adrift along floor edges and black stairs,
gunshots mastering the art of the fable,
Houdini, who lapped the scurf from his sores,
all vacant nooses complaining for work,
belligerent men at high mass on all-fours,
the hip-bone of God splintering a wrecked hulk,
leaded glass mottled grey at the centers of spires—
made its way to the hunting man alien from home,
ignorant of what now could be his name
and tired with dragging his frame on the loam,

however the night was calm.
However the night was, the night was calm

over the weeds, the dirt, and the sod
destroyed in the wake of the curtain rod.

When the man had gotten close to gaining the curtain rod,
he looked through the forest’s branches, and he saw

a fearless blank ocean recoiling from snow,
heavenly junkyards where cherubs built trash,
gentlemen smoking with nothing to show,
the taste of the hairpin, the glow of the lash,
a baker who butchered the whim of his ache,
the Celestial Rail-road biting its tail,
last century’s comedy cork-smeared in black,
the art of involuntary failure and fall,
infants destroying the roof of the moon,
dice tumbling over the shine of a blade,
peripheral ladyship poured into a gown,
children loping to bed, and they were afraid,
the beast of the air with the beast of the stream,
what each man kills, the soul of his flame,
and bank vault doors locking in frosted foam,

however the night was calm.
However the night was, the night was calm

for the man so fearful to look by his side,
pedaling his feet toward the curtain rod.

When the curtain rod had at last become unreachable,
the man walked still, and as he walked he knew

how the graces of us close up dark like umbrellas,
that these old things are about to get thrown away,
how the scales of our grievance sink down lithe endeavors,
the thing you will hear is the thing you must say,
where cauldrons roast nightly the lover will look,
there will be one if by land and three if by grave,
when heaven imploded the earth only shook,
we lie down in our cities and wake up in a cave,
to drink all its poison a throat should be young,
courage looks back at its deserts of salt,
the person who sings will not go unsung,
who fought in the fields, those here, also, fought:
the angel of ditches and the demon of chrome;
a mouth on the ground whose tongue, forced, struck a drum;
pencil-men; bathers; sea-sailors; in them all, a hymn;

however the night was calm.
However the night was, the night was calm

on the path that holds ever the scorch of the flood
laid in the prints of the swift curtain rod.