Without the light, the cat
alarmed now on a book
on a side table might
have crossed to the hand
still dangling from chaise
to floor, to see
if it would scratch or stroke,
asleep. What might have happened 
with more dark? What not?
The pitcher and basin
now dully themselves
amidst expiring shadow might
have held different water 
to bathe the pale sleeper.

But a censorious dwarf 
with helmet-like brow 
and pyramidal skirt,
her eyes and lips cruel hyphens,
is drawing back the drapes
in tiny envious fists
to admit time and color.

And the book is sealed beneath its guardian.

Prince of the Rainy Country

 
In his mind he composed reviews
    of books that never existed,
thus wasting valueless time.
Philosophies grandly, cavalierly
    mystical, whose methods
no one would ever follow; odes
to revolutionaries and authorities
    not of this world –
works he, the Prince, had imagined
and no sooner imagined than reviewed.
    Meanwhile the rain swelled
cell-walls in the already swampy forests;
endlessly peasants
    rehearsed their submission, making it exact.
When a rotting wheel fell from a rotted cart
the drayman stared, and on his throne,
    attended by peacocks, eunuchs, and blind spies,
the King wept –
believing in his madness
    his madness was the rain.  Drawing his
cowl over his crown, the Prince
went off to inspect the battlements,
    where a noble sardonic soldier
pointed out
a darker cloud investing the horizon.
    “It is death,” sighed the Prince.  Said the soldier,
“No – only the enemy.
Whatever isn’t death is not yet death
    and should, I believe, be welcomed.”
In the mist, the Prince stood silent and amazed,
having neither expected wisdom
    nor yearned for it like the sun.





Oz


He enters a room and rivals
who loathe him, exes and lovers,
slavish or promising
followers, and people who just want
an autograph, an interview,
or poems for a new
journal approach him. Why, he wonders,
do we say “center of attention”?
Attention is all. Without
effort he puts on
attentiveness, self-extrication,
wit and occasional interest,
engaging only with friends or absent friends,
thinking as he should he should be working,
and that events are boring
though preferable to other available boredom.

And reflects for a moment that someone else
will never approach this room,
or is here only to drink
in a corner, too sour to speak.
Will never experience eyes upon him, wanting,
resentful, hopeful, except perhaps
in a classroom, that inadequate noble
proxy. Will return to his work,
as if loser and winner
could meet on the plane of work, and the loser win
or forget winning ... At which point the successful
poet recalls 
Lermontov: does the wounded, dying
lieutenant imagine himself at a ball
in St. Petersburg, or vice versa?
It’s the classic modern theme, he considers, sighing.





Breakthrough


Harvard, Starlab, and Axilium Robotics
have successfully transmitted
binary signals directly
from one brain, in India, to another,
in France. In a sense, 
that of fear, I was there. 
Inane ineluctable voices
at once began to commend
Jesus, gold purchases,
our troops, staying calm. 
The synaptic current that carries
whatever it is, critique, 
resistance, metaphor towards
the surface is slower,
diffused before it gets there,
and leaves an urge to merge.
All love in future will be love of what 
despises, uses, and can’t 
perceive you. But it will always be hopeful –
belligerently so, 
like Adam before Creation crying,
Who’s gonna make me?