A Book of Magic

THOMAS CLARK

A BOOK OF MAGIC

The Beautiful Book controverts

Useful Knowledge, changes it into trivia.

Flatnesses in the intonation of what is read,

these consonants, not to be entered

their voices ashift and vulgar (hairy or weedy)

as changes of the sea:

October twilight, a lamp

touches the stubbled field to intermit

the labor in the scholars window.

The chartered way the hand moves down

the page and may not stray to either margin

to interpret. St Marks Four Horns. A syllable,

Ta. The book open (grimoire) to the

failing light, the hand over it

no lease to understanding it,

all meaning at the back of the cavern of these sounds

Ka Tor Hara

their denseness a gesture like

oak grain, ever a wall to him.

and the sun burns in stubbled field

are as rays that

seem divine and not a theme

to be written.