Mark Goodwin

Light Myth


A rich city's
streets are bright. Light
                 tonight bleeds

brilliance
from neon signs. Light
                          quivers

in wet-face pavements
        after rain. A faded

man-shape in shadows
        has a dark mouth;
               he's not eaten

since last week's
treasure in a bin. His drink
                    has been drops

of water from drainpipes.

This man's mind
is a black coal, the stove
of his skull cold. His dark

gob is open,
with a black leather clanger
                of tongue clacking

in the dull black bell of his head. This dark
                              hole to his bowel is wide,
                                                    but his eyes

             are closed. A vision

has this man. His black mouth bites
                      into light; feels & tastes
                                   fibrous photons

(as if someone
had succeeded in weaving
                          with sand);

his black mouth is blasted bright.

Some firmness
of what-we-see-by yields
                   to the pressing

together of his jaws. His throat
                             is hot as a soft

impossible solidity slips
beams into his gut. His blood
                                    vibrates

orangely through his veins; a faint
                                   glow fizzes off

his stained skin
and through the threads
of his clothes. His intestine

& its shit is illumined;
gold & coppery scrolls & oily
                  silvery coils throb

against his backbones & pelvis. He squats,
               trousers at ankles, and now blobs
                                like light bulbs, on, drop

from the hot gold hole
of his arse, as feeds on &

on; his mouth
open, pulling in light, now
             closes, now opens,
                            he chews

illumination; dark bright, dark bright,
                               black&light. And so

each of a rich city's lit streets bleeds
                   its brilliance into the bell
                                   of his head now

cathedral-bright, where inside
                   the coal of his mind

is diamond because of night.