Famous Poem #3

by Joseph Harker

One more that I came across today that is an excellent piece by a slightly less well-known poet, Peter Streckfus. (As always: no copyright infringement is intended.) There have been a few submissions sent in already, and they look very promising; to those who did send in, you shall have answers soon! Meanwhile, we are trying to figure out how best to present the works that are accepted; whether all at once, or daily, or what. Stay tuned, and spread the word…!

Purgatorio
(Peter Streckfus)

Come to the surface of the screen with your piscine light
and oxygen holes and press for moments
against the page—as if seeking to pass through it.

Make with the trunk of your body the third letter—
in a motion move the ends of your face and caudal fin
each to your right, toward each other — C.

Toward the third hour on your axis—
and in the same motion sweep your trunk back,
tail beat pushing through the ninth hour, moving you

headfirst in the new direction and off the screen—
this movement follow with movement of more bodies,
simultaneous, unselfconscious, aggregate—

choral, co-created, a gathering
of you in the mind—oscillate behind the screen like a wheel
of bodies, a promenade—it we you he she—

move through the water column, skins of bodies,
similar, discreet—company, crowd, collection,
shoal and plural movement of consciousness.

Setting and set by the turbid water in motion,
the new law of movement. Dissolution
and coming into being. Appear as lights

and images on the screen, your voices faded
to an inaudible and drawn-out O!
meaning here is the place we asked for!