Brancusi’s Golden Bird

       The toy

       become the aesthetic archetype

As if

       some patient peasant God

       had rubbed and rubbed

       the Alpha and Omega

       of Form

       into a lump of metal

       A naked orientation

       unwinged    unplumed

           —the ultimate rhythm

       has lopped the extremities

       of crest and claw

       from

       the nucleus of flight

       The absolute act

       of art

       conformed

       to continent sculpture

       —bare as the brow of Osiris—

       this breast of revelation

       an incandescent curve

       licked by chromatic flames

       in labyrinths of reflections

       This gong

       of polished hyperaesthesia

       shrills with brass

       as the aggressive light

       strikes

       its significance

       The immaculate

       conception

       of the inaudible bird

       occurs

       in gorgeous reticence …