PHILIP DODD

PHILIP DODD

BOOK BIRD WROTE

This book contains the solving of the paradox.
It was found with keys and locks in a stone chamber.
The lid took an age to remove.
The text is very fine, high. Not human written.
Its language is alien, translated into that of early Earth,
first civilization speech.
Its scribe, perhaps humorously,
describes itself as a bird.
Its plan to fly away once its task is done.
Scholars would admire it for its poetry only.
Attempt to locate its author in some pre-Biblical time,
somewhere in what became Sumeria.
Its first words I quote:
Book bird wrote. Begin.
From land crane cry, from oceans whale song,
wind and silence else.
Creation seems simple till the mind attends to itself,
considers the rope riddle, craves its untanglement.
My word path the paradox will present and solve.
In a hut on stilts, above marsh reed and water, I write.
It goes on so, for many pages.
The book is silence made solid.
It disturbs, excites, like thunder,
more searing to the soul than inferno's gate,
holds the fear of shoreless ocean,
when open, no secrets then.

CYCLOPS

Cyclops sat by his stone stove on his stone chair,

ate black bracken broth mixed with red kidney stew

with a wood spoon from his wood bowl,

in his cave half way up a hill.

When one decribes such an ogre what can one do?

"Humans, goats, sheep, hawks, even vipers have two,

so why have I but one eye?

Why so singular am I

beneath the blue but unresponsive sky?"

he groaned, his belly bloated and fed.

He lived by himself, so no one heard what he said.

His friend, the centaur, he visited,

far down in the vale,

hoping his dim wisdom

had grown less pale.

"This riddle I cannot solve.

Why with only one eye did I evolve?"

he asked him, in a dolorous tone.

"Why ask me who is half human, half horse?

How can I riddle right?" the centaur replied,

who to himself was always right, of course.

Cyclops stumped off, felt alone, with none on his side.

The faun was no help, being half human, half goat.

 "It is as if we are all in a myth some human wrote,"

instead, off the subject, he said.

Nor was the Minotaur any more sure,

being half human, half bull.

The question Cyclops asked him

drained all thought from his brain

till only sleep was left in his skull.

Cyclops retired to his cave,

thinking every image in his eye

was sacred to save.

WHITE GLIDER

There has been a development,

a report of something strange,

and though nothing is certain yet,

it seems there will be a change.

The top circle is excited,

what they seek is now in range.

In the heat of summer time,

they might send me away,

on a mission somewhere,

so you know what I will say,

mine is the face you never knew,

and as for my aeroplane,

must be as if it never flew.

The submarines in the ocean

sometimes surface in my mind,

and I almost have a notion

of what they hope to find.

Many agents wear dark glasses,

but none of them are blind.

I have my own entertainment unit,

it is called my brain.

I don't need music on an I Pod,

to save me from boredom or keep me sane.

I promise when you turn around,

you will see me again.

They advised to have no ties,

and now I understand why,

but what we have is strong,

your face is in my eye.

When I return we will relearn

to enjoy our freedom from the lie.

I have felt singled out since childhood

when I built a white glider in the shed.

I let the wind take it up on the shore,

watched it spin high above my head.

Already had my secret life

and no one cared or knew,

I felt pleasure in the strain on the string

as my white glider flew.

PHILIP DODD