Mina Loy


Branchusts Golden Bird
 

The toy
becomes the aesthetic archetype

As if
some patient peasant God
had rubbed and rubbed
the Alpha and Omega
of Form
into a lump of metal

A naked orientation
unwinged unplumed
-the ultimate rhythm
has lopped the extremities
of crest and claw
from
the nucleus flight

The absolute act
of art
conformed
to continent sculpture
-bare as the brow of Osiris-
This breast of revelation

An incandescent curve
licked by chromatic flames
in labyrinths of reflections

This gong
of polished hyperaesthesia
shrills with brass
as the aggressive light
strikes
its significance

The immaculate
conception
of the inaudible bird
occurs
in gorgeous reticence ...

Golden Bird Bronze, stone, and wood, 1919/20; h. 217.8 cm
(with base) from The Art Institute of Chicago

This drawing of Constantin Brancusi is done by Mina Loy
around 1924. It is from The Last Lunar Baedeker edited
by Roger L. Conover (Highlands, NC: Jargon Society, 1982).