Todd Swift (Maida Vale, London, UK): "Sonnet: Listening In"

Things are what kings hold— and let go of, once,
learning too late that the nothing outside belongs
to the nothingness buzzing in our blood, and will
connect to it, as a burglar will drill through
steel locks and busy tumblers, to our blood.
The tempest of existence thrums and thunders,
rumbling the body like a great beating of a kettle drum,
announcing the hard hollows and stretched surfaces
of ourselves, our groaning testimony to being present
against our wish, to an audience that loves us less.
We sense the vibrancy of loss as a humming of violins,
like a surgery wild with last minute cutting, a tuning
up of instruments and mastery— the universe
has a body like a dancer’s, a mind like a maggot’s.

© Todd Swift 2005