Whoever said that I should count on mind? Think it through, think it up—now that I know so much, what’s left to think is the unthinkable. And the will has grown too tired to stamp its foot. It sings a vapid song, it dithers and mopes, it takes its basket to the marketplace, like a…
All the way home, I kept thinking of the lost finger of St. Teresa, displayed in the gift shop of a convent where she spent most of her life being thrown by the devil down the stairs or gripping the handrail after communion, so others wouldn’t see how it took all of her strength to…
how was it sudden your long death shock fixed black parking lots ramps the bright art in the hallways flagrant flowers a fish tank in the white places one latex glove like petals spilled on the way to or from some room with a horror in it glass coffin rice flour your skin taking on…
As if the names we use to name the uses of buildings x-ray our souls, war without end: Palace. Prison. Temple. School. Market. Theater. Brothel. Bank. War without end. Because to name is to possess the dreams of strangers, the temple is offended by, demands the abolition of brothel, now theater, now school; the school…
Their place is now taken by ruins, but not by ruins of themselves but of later restorations, Freud said of the Senate and People of Rome—otherwise known as SPQR, inscribed above the arch of Septimius Severus: Senatus Populus Que Romanus Silk Pajamas Quietly Rule Us Seven Peaches Quite Ripe Some Passing Qualm Resurfaced Some Private…
And then there was the night, not long After my wife had left me and taken on the world- Destroying fact of a lover, and the city Roared in flames with it outside my window, I brought home a nice woman who had listened To me chant my epic woe for three Consecutive nights of…
None of us would have admitted having sentiments or fears, but we had to have the right loafers, wide belt, sober tie, a madras jacket, hair just too long, and a studied slouch, suggesting bored intelligence and the athlete’s effortless grace. It was 1967, part and not part of what’s called now, with more than…
I spent a night in the Simic woods. I pulled my bed behind me through the trees. I was a plowshare plowing ground mist. Accordion players still playing their accordions Were lying draped over the low branches; And girls ran back and forth through the orchard Tickling their bottoms with partridge wings. “No matter what…
If I loved him—I loved him— I cannot remember the whole middle part where the gods never go, they’d be bored. Of the beginning—how many poems to describe his buoyancy, and gaze, and hands— how many times can the act of whispering together be a remonstrance to the underworld? And the end is completely remembered—…
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