Classic Poem

A litter bin vexes the mill, we howl
for more. The complex call, the xenophobic
alternatives, with related concerns having
reached a critical mast. What is shared, at
best, is intriguing, your life, this
surrogate social struggle. Language a
sorrow gate, malled environ, woody
ardour. In doing so clearly foreground,
is now plain, of particulate importance, if
only in reflected convenience. " I hate
speech " & speech don't like me none too good
either. Instead of rat brains I ate gnat
wings. East of paradise, north of the
corridor, to which none is subject, all
member. Stepping through the water to the
mops. Snow covers the boats, smothers
the folks. Otherwise, the damage already
glows, slows, mows. A cause, a
pose, something on vapor (they used to be
the leaders of the avant garde, but now
they just want to be understood). Only
fragments are (f)actual . Shapes sloshing,
the wave of pandemonium or gloss of
consternation, mute in the (a) sea that only
scatters. Everyone keeps shouting
in my ears: but rest assured, dear papa,
that these are my very own sentiments and
have not been borrowed from anyone. I want
to put this word here (the dead
should have known better). Folding cups
to receive syllables. The
flimsy charms, hysteric prognostication. She
looked
so nice you kind of wonder about her
husband. O soredea! O weedsea! Men in
Aida are appealing, aren't they? A day
with Achilles in silly garb, Apollo on a
deep hill — all pay high prices for full
head, misunderstood as a measure
of distance across a level field of things
each defining a spiral dressed in shadow,
tracing the rustling of language's identity
turned into creamed figures, like constant
commotion, repeatedly connoting. This
I saw and said before dis-
covering the wren. An ordinary, empty
tune, inflated yet miniature, elbowed
enzymatically. Stillness
crumpling; holding the map that is
unattached, figurative boot in backstage
foolscap. Apply thumb
for answer: insatiable
fatigue. For polis is peals,
pelts, pages. Deep snow
behind a red temple. Last week I
wrote, " This morning
the swelling's died & pilots
compete for the sober hue in a pile
of broken-up sentiments (tenements). " Not
fixed!? When then!? All that
aside, a girl is running. ( — Don't
tell me a girl is running.)
Wild vistas inside blistering
paint (pant, pummel the
chimera). My vision of aspects
houses prefabrication (the enigma
rose before the triangulated
nose). (Looking on hopelessly
like children eating baloney.)
Derision thrives whether or not
it is possible to reply. I have
destroyed my ammunition to make way
for an ocean that shadows me as
I walk in the unpaid-for park, yet
the traffic draws away from me and I
am ill at ease listening to the sugar
pour and the gravity steam. Shall
we stroll into focus or submerge
in ponds: example is gratified
by its spout. On the way to L.A. I
meet a surrogate for you in a bar, give him
room in the passenger seat and desultory
conversation, a smoke, kisses, blowjob,
encouragement, $5, concerned disturbed
uptight look. How can I characterize you
that way? You're really gone. I confuse
you with the reader. I can't scream
in space. I come at myself (I'm
not interested in pursuing lines
of thought): you can hear the shapes
and grates of the swoon. If to witness,
if to judge, which is to say exacerbate
the only sign of mottled hiss, embroidered
embrasure. These
are not my words but those that summer
gives me, with a tenderness quite
unknown in the real world, where
there is little to remember but
stormy days. I would have a house
of my own, with a bay of pastel
miasma, reality leaking
from its edges, as the context
conditions. Therefore, my style
seems to have fallen to
pieces, deteriorated
in the three-year interim
between books; others
may write better-made poems
but those poems with their elegant
turns of phrase, their vivid
imagery, even their conceptual
excellence, often add up to nothing.
Either poetry is real as, or realer than,
life, or it is nothing, a stupid
& stupefying occupation for zombies.
For my poetry is informed by
something inside that doesn't
flinch & won't budge. & I
could never have done it alone.
I may work in the factory but I glide
to the music of the anemones.