Luminous Great Mass
Holy Trinity Airship
billows a
chrys-
elephantine
cave Louis Sullivan, Arch-
itect, lord master,
conceived of
in the hollow of power.
He swells.
I am his balloonist
balancing an azimuth
as earth-apse I
orbit, robed in
hot gas & leather
fastened by a yolk-stalk
of gravity to gold-
end onions nozzling heavens
whose suns are stomachs
with churches in their navels.
Each we are priests
as aeronauts at the vestibules,
& enter the cavity:
space, self, organ; celest-
ial nave
bellies
stars sailors name saints
and adore—
their egress is bitter
weeping, their praise pure
Russian form:
a cathedral,
my inner orrery.
Copyright Credit: Peter O’Leary, “Luminous Great Mass” from Watchfulness. Spuyten Duyvil, 2001.
Source: Watchfulness (Spuyten Duyvil, 2001)