Hopkins/Thomas Study

"Hopkins/Thomas Study" (sprung rhythm)

Spark Motes of dust float in the beam

Through canopy of bed and wood

Good

Of opened drawer and canopy

Of forest down on pioneer men

Inn

Rangers Beggars Merchants Speeches

In this floating world suspended

Hid

Like masters under canopy

And cover of a palanquin

Men

Straining lift with slavery or

Drunkenness of moon mating

Rutting

Simply, masters, servants, but no

Enoch's Enoch's Enoch's walk, no

Clue

I could not pass that place of job

Without between its hovering

Shivering

Like Vaseline between a lens

A blur obscuring it with crud

Blood

Along a twisted plastic seam

Of rubber coming out of groove

Grove

Grease-packed, long moist with stolen sweat

Of Man amongst the man-shaped thieves

Droves

Of Man with whom he has, at times,

To dread and to associate.

Eliminate

Thus twisted by the barbarous

I could not pass that place so grew

Knew

I would eventually escape

Into the words that bury them

Drum

Mass graves' hundred millions where once

Tens of millions lived too, longing,

Stringing

Beads on rosaries and stringing

Up unnecessary man-shapes

Grapes

Exploding as high pressure lights

Imploding as they reel from heights

Wits

Lanternfish of riots, winters,

Shouts and dreams, exploding Tzar killed

Lulled

By propaganda teeming from

The crowd programmed by snore of sky

High

Poem by T. Appleman