"The book is a profound pleasure, the gift of a master."
--Harold Bloom
seeking to convince the supreme Jester
that I am indeed the man in those commercials.
Simultaneously it peaked in Bolivia, the moon,
I mean. Then we were walking over what seemed to be
heather, or was called that. The downtown riot
of free speech occurred. Plastered to its muzzle,
Randy the dog's decoding apparatus went astray.
By then it was afternoon in much of the world;
iced tea was served on vast terraces
overlooking a crumbling sea. You can't juggle
four toddlers. Three is enough. Out of the beckoning
sea they arrived, in white ruffles with black coin-dots
attatched; the lawn was closer to a farm
this time; it mouthed "Farm." Will vacuumed the whole of space
as far as the mind-your-own-business wire stretched, that is,
from Cadiz to Enterprise, Alaska. We thought we had seen a few new
adjectives, but nobody was too sure. They might have been
gerunds, or bunches of breakfast...
Quarry
I was lying, lying down,
reading the last plays of Shakespeare.
A brat came to me, eyes squealing,
excitement its thing. Until I put two and two together
I never crossed the inlet
or realized what tributary meant.
O we all have fine times
in the spring she said.
No one needs to know pretty much
about that attitude I suppose,
yet there are riders, and puzzles, and soon,
baking at the long end of day
a poor cloud measures its shadow,
the intent of all those gone away.
Deeply Incised
If this is July, why does it look like August?
Sadly growing up into the real world
I don't even ask these questions myself.
Why are the shutters drawn
over that restaurant?
The moon's backwash is like a deeply incised
hairnet against the stadium.
Bats drool into the gutter.
If everybody is so intent on illustrating what they know,
why is the ant syllabus closed?
Dear Sir or Madam
After only a week of taking your pills
I confess I am seized with a boundless energy:
My plate fills up even as I scarf vegetable fragments
from the lucent blue around us. My firmament,
as I see it, was never this impartial.
The body's discomfiture, bodies of moonlit beggars,
sex in all its strangeness: Everything conspires
to hide the mess of inner living, raze
the skyscraper of inching desire.
Kill the grandchildren, leave a trail
of paper over the long interesting paths in the wood.
Transgress. In a word, be other than yourself
in turning into your love-soaked opposite. Plant
his parterre with antlers, burping
statue of when-was-the-last-time-you-saw Eros;
go get a job in the monument industry.