Constraints :
- 1. Text can be read both backwards and forwards, word-by-word.
- 2. Text has an odd number of words.
- 3. The middle word means the opposite of the first (and hence the last) word
Rising
up, give to live spirits all rats dead. In remainders of division is religion, bread. Into
loaves multiplying by millions dove the feeding fishermen, peaceful. The
love, bleeding hearts for bleating sheep, shepherds up wind will not
sense; they that hunt that they pray protect themselves, to sing
some day the song of ferrymen becoming mortals. Harbors
Diana guards by thickening thickets all around, arrows
leaping wildly among young leopards, spotting in
startled stares. Bast, listen! Whistling missiles,
feathered by feathered men, Sebastian's saint
consume. They feast, the blessed beasts
re-membering, as echo west and east;
and past and present mingle
that they duplicate as one
single for-giving
the great
falling.
Great the
for-giving single
one as duplicate. They that
mingle present and past and
east and west echo as re-membering
beasts blessed the feast they consume.
Saint Sebastian's men, feathered by feathered
missiles, whistling, listen. Bast stares, startled
in spotting leopards young among wildly leaping
arrows around all thickets thickening by guards. Diana
harbors mortals becoming ferrymen of song the day some
sing to themselves: "protect, pray." They that hunt, that they sense
not, will wind up shepherds sheep, bleating for hearts bleeding. Love
the peaceful fishermen feeding the dove millions by multiplying loaves
into bread: religion is division of remainders in dead rats. All spirits live to give up,
rising.
Note : the above is an extract from my book My Cat Breaks Into Vowels. After the publication of that book, I published this poem as an NFT.