Magneto

I saw the back of his face as he passed
lit with arterial light
the course and span of his fluid energy
branch and bundle in exorbitant capitulation

he webs his space with waves of force
shot red with exultant counter-gleams
and has made its dull, frittered expanse
lively with oscillation

each leaden domino of space sparks
pink impinged by votive others
and ferrous particles stand on end
organize themselves as dancing fragments

linked in ropy vessels carrying juice
fleshed by congealed air
colored with layered smears
a doll of stone atoms, electrified

that rolls up its eye and blinks
the surface shivering like skinned jelly
set in lolling motion by play of elements
making itself, this popkin

not ex nihilo, nor of wetted dust
but of the iron chalice of air
and subtle molecules compounded
fired by spark, driven by wind

flaming up to comprehension
and in its book of genealogies
brother not to the languid animal
or the rooted plant kingdom

rather, sibling of air
combustion wetted down with flesh
still burning, a phosphoric column
fretting over the map of the world

only rarely touching ground
flying, if only an inch aloft
in flight over gravel rather than mountains
winged by its own weight

made light by perpetual combustion
but exhaustible
its immortality consumed in a day
leaving a black crust on a white frame

all this as my neighbor passed me
listening to private music









Lee Ballentine's poems have appeared in Abraxas, Caliban, Exquisite Corpse, and Mississippi Mud, as well as many other journals in the twenty-five years since James Laughlin wrote that Lee was “pushing up into the Amazon of the new poetry.” He is the author of seven books of poems.