Two Poems

Ring Cycle

Before, during, and after Anselm Kiefer

When I say this high I guess it is a salute
        to blobs of meat or blushing organs
and the height assumes a kind of blue-
        pink water minus Virginia Woolf.
Or when I say this high it is a salute
        of pale smoke baring face up to clouds
where clouds make faces palest sheets.
        Or when I make this salute it really says
NOTHUNG and is a voice inside singing
        EIN SCHWERT VERHIEß MIR DER VATER!
so I wonder blushing if my fire’s collapsing
        back to water less Virginia Woolf.
Or when I make this salute suddenly
        there’s a white cot in a wooden attic
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