Jul 9, 2013 | Uncategorized
191.
He
will be safer as a ferly-man if men they have or are
he
will be a leper-man in ordinary land
his
voice the bell to warn away the fearful
because
language is a holy terror believe me
hide
yourself in the silence of story
there’s
always something left to believe
dust
for sparrows said the old aesthete
be
bathed clean in what defiles us
Arbeit,
heilende Welle
in what defines us
how
far inland we’ve been carried by the wave
left
where no other wave can come
lost
among friends in a house of one’s own.
Jul 6, 2013 | Uncategorized
for
Betty
On a
scale of 1 to 10
the
rain falls wet
Lenin’s
mummy outlasts glasnost.
The
kingdom of cicadas rises and falls,
on a
scale of 1 to 10
our
caves are brighter now and less dank
diner
coffee keeps getting better
waitresses
get older and blonder
and
I don’t know for sure where all this goes
Nero
Wolfe would call it amphigory,
nonsense
verse, nonsense with numbers,
on a
scale of 1 to 10
I’ve
hardly begun
the
muddy Orinoco impregnates the sea,
the
Homestead Act is far away
but
the prairies are still there
people
I knew got acres in Alaska
even
in the 1950s — ah,
there’s
a number at last, or four of them,
all
of them but one on a scale of 1 to 10
and
that one was none
so
on a scale of 1 to 10
the
world has not even yet begun
and
all the pizza parlors and battleships
are
just illusions and I’m beginning
(speaking
of beginnings)
to
wonder about me,
on a
scale of 1 to 10 am I here yet,
is
there anyone behind this noise you hear,
people
buzzing about the cicadas, poor things,
they
don’t even exist on a scale of 1 to 10,
only
André Breton has got their number,
Arcane
17 from
long ago Gaspé, and Canada,
what
is Canada on a scale of 1 to 10,
and
shall I count the ways,
let
alone Massachusetts?
On a
scale of 1 to 10
pain
for instance is usually at zero or eleven
but
pleasure measures
itself
meekly, how rarely joys
or
even blisses
get
past 8 or 9,
and
from what we read in the Bible
heaven
doesn’t even get to 7,
all
those feathers, all that
stone-age
music on tin harps.
But where
was I on a scale of 1 to 10,
was
I a pirate was I a priest,
all
nouns are 10 all verbs are maybe
depending
on who’s looking,
on
who’s talking,
and
who is listening?
On a
scale of 1 to 10
is
it you or is it him,
the
man in the moon, the woman in the wind
or
is it window, on a scale
of 1
to 10 is it even now yet,
this
bright day I’m trying to believe
all
the numbers scattered round my feet,
birds
chasing beetles, shadows chasing sun,
on a
scale of 1 to 10
am I
even me?
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