juxtaposition

THE LAKE
Alexis Stamatis

A'

Be careful - he said, there's a lake in the north,a great fountain
where words gurgle up, and a handle there, that governs the flow
so they plunge again, to the bottom,onto the impenetrable green of the deep ;
the words are naked,and the water there, endlessly whirling, circles the floating wetsuits,
stocked with sulphur and bismuth, while the voices couch upon the water lilies,for the frogs to laze at noon.

And rafts there, on the water, tied to rounded buoys, with cotton binding the planks,
and bones, in stacks, upon the rafts, and windflowers, and voices, wet and swollen,
emerging from the foam, and in the mist the voices rise, deep red,
while pale clouds descend from above, and rain pelts the voices, clinging to the cyclamen,and it is night

B'

Often the waters gyre within, underground, as if they were sullied and are now made pure,
and the shoreline shifts, and the lilies surge up, brimming with toads and voices
and a thick whisper emerges from the lake, a stifled cry, a soughing
water wallows in the pit, and weds the earth to clambering,
and the tumult enfolds the trees, draping the branches, and the sap glistens
in the tangle of water and sound, in the swamp, sulphur and evening.
when beasts sharpen they claws on their skin, and tadpoles sprout twigs on their scales,
and mammals roar amid the bracken, and the wind is rabid, when a bolt brightens the land,
and a bare-breasted form appears like chiselled stone, and stands amid the tempest, shivering.

C'

And she's bundled in a sheet, a chiton, I can't be certain and stands under the downpour with tousled hair,
water glistening on her brow, she stands in the power of the night,
with the glossy lake before her, as sounds embrace her ankles, and enshroud her body,
her eyes open to the east, the lake always approaching in the dissolving light and dark.
and each time, when the rhythm of her breath shatters the husk, each time,
when a blac k stone appears, all the lake is blood.