Gulliver
Over your body the clouds go High, high and icily And a little flat, as if they Unlike swans, Having no reflections; Unlike you, With no strings attached. All cool, all blue. Unlike you --- You, there on your back, Eyes to the sky. The spider-men have caught you, Winding and twining their petty fetters, Their bribes --- So many silks. How they hate you. They converse in the valley of your fingers, they are inchworms. They would have you sleep in their cabinets, This tow and that toe, a relic. Step off! Step off seven leagues, like those distances That revolve in Crivelli, untouchable. Let this eye be an eagle, The shadow of his lip, an abyss.
Gulliver - meaning Summary
Freedom Against Small Constraints
The poem contrasts a cold, detached sky with a vulnerable figure lying back, watched and entangled by small, controlling forces—"spider-men" representing petty restraints and social snares. It observes how others try to possess and classify the body, offering silks and relics. The final lines urge release: to step away from containment, imagine an eagle’s clear sight and an abyss-like freedom, rejecting the lovers’ or society’s fetters.
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