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This poem is taken from PN Review 199, Volume 37 Number 5, May - June 2011.

Two Poems Christopher Middleton
The Pendulum Stilled
Homage to Bruno Schulz (1892-1942)


He wrote of a stillness
taking hold of the pendulum

as a condition required
for a creation to be surfacing.

Here and now, fragile goblin
reaching past the back of beyond:

can he out of torment have imagined
words to hold time in suspense? It flows

one way only; only myth
corrugates the surface of mind

perceiving time otherwise - as
a measured starburst, radiant node,

gardens of fathomless light.
Pendulums don't take issue

with gravity but go along with it.
...


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