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TROGONOPTERA BROOKIANA

 

Hello, a butterfly hot enough hops

      up through the tenderest chats,

threats and clefts of birdsong, and gropes

      round our sunhats

 

in the forest clearing.  What does our soft

      visitor importune us

for?  Asks?  When will blood be coughed?

      Or must we guess?

 

Close the wing-gates of your dark cape

      dripping with oval green eyes.

And take a glass: rye, mint julep—

      we randomise.

 

Like the sweat of dreams the sweet mind-robbing

      drug clots the goblet’s

side.  You will not drink?  The bobbing

      proboscis sets

 

tight.  Not your dope?  Aren’t you

      with us in these swamp-water backs?

I thought you a friend.  There are frontier

      troubles, attacks

 

we have to cope with and ward off.

      Lenient why can’t you be

with this upstream station and wharf

      to dock at, dwell by?

 

Why come, refuse to drink, and wordless land?

      By an omen we are gate-crashed!

What is wrong with our mind,

      colonial, smashed,

 

dissecting the hot-resined green,

      jotting our stuff still

so it hangs together, breaks clean

      off like a tale?

 

Off?  Get!  Trogonoptera—let me paint

      my drunken picture of this

jungle life.  Why should I heed your hint

      of nemesis?

 

We’ll lick our syrups.  Keep our slips on file

      while the creatures are relaxed.

Omen butterfly, drink.  And?  I’ll

      examine you next!

  

Alan Marshfield

  

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