A HISTORY POEM
Inside this? A ballade for the popinjay—
Inside this a ballade of her blue china—
His blue of an enphebe prince-ling, bulls and mountains
And her white of froth and fountains in a park
Where peach blossoms grow
As a bookseller baits his breath for April—
And the princess wouldn’t shed a [...]
Chagrin Pentagon Promises Law Demons Ashes Dressing Crossing Rope Deeds Positive Hopeful Brick. Filling Tight Spot Classy Epiphany Fear Gratitude Grief Guilt Happiness Hate Horror Jealousy Pity Pride Regret Rejection Remorse Righteous Serenity Shame Shyness Suffering Virtues Love Views Article Tools Sign Cite Polyester Natural Blend Fleece Lithe Quilted Muslin Stuff Soft Silky Soft Silky [...]
The laundromat leaves make a wicked tornado
The magazines yawp out their Holy Toledo!
I reach around in the fish’s mouth
Through ideopathic nostrils and yank
The hot rock from its nest.
Up in the pent apartment,
scarcely a story
away from an incidental
street, flush from another
neighborhood murder, at odds again
with the alleged moon. Hungry
but out of the essential soup, so walking
the way of all flesh
to the quick mart for coffee and reports in Arabic.
A targeted buyer of bottles and noodles
and improved antacids, protected from little
in frayed tan [...]
“The more injured you are by time, the more you seek to escape it. To write a faultless page, or only a sentence, raises you above becoming and its corruptions. You transcend death by the pursuit of the indestructible in speech….”
- E.M. Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born, tr. Richard Howard. © Arcade Publishing, 1998.
