The Hammer Thrower

One wants some gold paint, oil for enfleurage,
The flowers leaching their pervasive smell,
A spattered, highly scented mixing-place—
Of course it would be better if sunlight
Gilded the nude in the studio corner,
The crushed flowers were released from bondage,
Or so we are told—but who believes it?
The floor is strewn with our exuviae:
A last-year's flaking of our summer tan,
The dashed rose like a stepped-on, greaseless kiss,
A flung bottle, the faint, nostalgic scent—
It may not look it, but this was meant to be
A place of projection, the white nude seen
As something painted gold and powerful,
A perfume pouring from a hero's mouth
Into the dark caves of halitosis
Where the lion waits with a thorn in his foot—
Summer has no keener light and odor
Than these mixing-places of our choosing,
A secret skylight winking at the heart,
The miasma lurking in tight-lipped books.
One wishes to dip the peach in metal,
Fatten it to be thrown like a hammer,
The released athlete whirling in a scent,
Our brilliant dervish, the earth's gyroscope—
Someone at last finds the delved, golden ball,
The far, blind reach of an enthrottlement,
An expelled gorge of the full, swallowed day.
I like to walk in fields and meadows,
Dreaming of flash, rush, whirr, the manic shower,
Feeling the rounded rock beneath the arch
As the giant deals with the lodged pebble—
I have come to the end of paving stones,
The unstirred sunlight, the fulsome flowers.