Landfall onscreen text

(from “I Thought There Were Limits” a poem by D.G. Jones, published in Phrases from Orpheus (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 26)

I thought there were limits, Newtonian

Laws of emotion-

I thought there were limits to this failing away,

This emptiness. I was wrong.

The apples, falling, never hit the ground.

So much for grass, and animals-

Nothing remains,

No sure foundation on the rock. The cat

Drifts, or simply dissolves.

L'homme moyen sensuel*

Had better look out: complete

Deprivation brings

Dreams, hallucinations which reveal

The sound and fury of machines

Working on nothing—which explains

God's creation: ex nihilo fecit.^**

Wrong again. I now suspect

The limit is the sea itself,

The limitless.

So, neither swim nor float. Relax.

The void is not so bleak.

Conclude: desire is but an ache,

An absence. It creates

A dream of limits

And grows in gravity as that takes shape.