John Carder Bush's _The_Creation_Edda_

[IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]

     Fulfilling a Love-Hounds request, here is a transcription
of John's poem, _The_Creation_Edda_ (The Sceptre Press, 1970).

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 _The_Creation_Edda_

 Embla ascends the slope,
 climbs up from ribbed lava
 to flesh hurting ash blasts;
 Ask lingers behind her.
 Dampness from creation
 steams on the crater thigh.
 She straddles Hekla's mouth,
 he sucks the boiling mound:
 copulation brings screams,
 the volcano dribbles
 paths to lower them down
 satiated by fire
 never to know on earth
 the lip of such pleasure.

 On the black strand
 symbols are now exposed,
 bones arranged
 in runic death patterns:
 the world cycle
 demonstrated by stone,
 wood and flat iron.
 Embla lies with each thing,
 Ask looks and knows.
 Understanding
 without explanation
 they depart and separate.

 The land is a circle,
 when they have run they meet,
 find they can now converse,
 react to the unclothed
 brushings of mouth and loin.
 On the ice flow they grip,
 cut, twist, break open seeds
 throwing out the white salt,      (An earlier draught has this line as
 revive volcanic dreams:            "throwing out the white land,".)
 unable to satisfy
 their diminuated lust
 the allegoric flesh
 learns the thrill of return.
 They wake to birds singing
 the purple of snow skies.       (An earlier draft has this line as
                                "the purple of cloud skies.")

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     That's it.

-- Andrew Marvick