Lewis Todd: Two Poems
Lakmé
what remains past hours of visitation
is out of town for time being
overwhelming quiet en-route: we are
coming as you ought
arrives you music to
the bay of black
horses, braying and
misting, a quickening
carries us small
away against the
world’s comings and
goes flight
eyelid flicker, wing-
beat, wing-glide,
out-breathing She
is waving good-
bye and the
door is blue so
much about
so the ring we
choose still
to wear
this manner
of carriage
Arête
[i]
horses bound
down river, foam
black-eyed to
all as near so true
there must be
something better
something
white wine
or hot
water
only in this
could I draw
towards
lichen
[ii]
something translucent
digestive system
clung to window
[iii]
arête, canto passes
the name backwards
through the lip
of fallen trunk:
HER iteration is
the reinvention
of moss
by way of
sculpture park from
first principles, the subtractive
art of seeing everything
all at once
all as
purple
[iv]
we pray it
give sharpness, dorsal fin
ultraviolet, HIS yellow unspoken
cuts the airy way
hid inside
that world of delight
the
space
between
par- ticulars
Lewis Todd is a poet and PhD student based between Cambridge and Hastings, working on Romanticism, ecology, and scale. He has spent the morning picking elderflowers.