rambling through the bush
spear in hand
hunting the slippery abalone
who holds the key to the
records in the Directory of Mollusks

tusks, elephantine masthead
guardian of that gash upon which
the ocean coughs its secrets
tomes of geologic time
excretions, widowed mountains, cusps

bark eyeball
breathes over this domain
this demonic placenta in which
Leviathan churns and waits for
history to end

orgasm plunges to that dark
epicenter where the incubator
reveals itself to the egg

where vitreous humor, awash,
unfurls

she whispers her name:

Mother of Pearl

shifting through viewpoints
upgrading and reanimating through level-realms
ladders and staircases
balconies and plateaux
underground rivers
emerging through psychical and physical trauma
a neck wound preventing field of vision
healed by gradual reintegration of polar axes and
hitchhiking in the pelican beak of time’s fumbling court-ship
pirate jesters and maritime gestures
in collaboration over
council-funded kaluli tears
constructive fear-exacerbation of secret lineages
a trump and a trump card, interreferentially thumbing down into soil
seeding and watering this germ-nation
a potent particular shoal of ruse
inciting joke vows and studying narratives of mineral cleavage
drilling for wellsprings and extracting lost rings
from subterranean passageways
in the hollow sets and decks where tomes preside
the falconer fits the glove and wears on
through cavernous sockets crinkling with eternal grins
finding a number of paths through the runes and inciting them
to play contrapuntally
composed, not improvised
an orchestral structure below the crust
settled in the pit of the bitten apple upon whose skin the stage is set
a concave
an enclave
a premeditated cadenza decoded
the snail within the player piano