From Notes No Answer
How’d I
get so
scrambled?
§
Will it freeze or
rain, to bring back
a healthy sun, dew-
moistened grass, wet leaves,
good drainage, a system
of levees, dams, electro-
hydraulic generators humming
in the melted snow?
§
What people and what
knowledge, what proposal or
compromise, whose fidelity
and whose lust, whose game
or who’s game and who’s not?
§
Isn’t it weird
to almost always be
looking forward
to the next
distraction?
§
We’re all together now,chewing meatballs and
the good French wine
bouquets pleasantly—
what do you think?
§
Is our body
of feeling somehow
other—I mean
a self—what is it
to know?
§
Am I too infected
to feel the last cool of
spring in a window screen I
forgot to close when I turned
on the air conditioner?
§
Does it matter if
I am a great man
or a failure, or is there
something between
worse than both?
§
If words have weight
why can’t I wait for them
to let on what they want
me to know?
§
Why do words weighso light on my tongue,
slightly prickly, or
almost rubbery, but
definitely weirdly like
let-go balloons, Cratylus?
§
Was I supposed to keep
my trap shut?
§
Wouldn’t you like a pint
of black Irish beer,
hot chips soaked in vinegar
and a punk rock juke box
pumping The Pogues?
§
What of the star-
nosed mole or
black tailed prairie
dog—even the least
flycatcher?
§
Does post-yuppie to you
seem every day
was traded for authentic
cultural versions
not of history
but an almost hormonal fascination
with style?
§
Will hawks and micemove inside or under
ground for the next wave of
proposals that issue
along the head-tail
corridor?
§
Where did we go
in the moonlight with
our guns loaded, our
children yoked?
§
How is it you feel
someone touch you,
pressure of breath in
soft hair, or the way
sunlight reddens skin
too long riding
in a car?
§
There goes
another season
of gold fields and
red leaves, but why
don’t you change
the channel?
§
There are limits,
but who’s looking?
§
There’s a frame,but who feels it?
§
There’s an order,
but who’s pinched by it?
§
There are fragrances,
but who’s lifted by them?
§
There’s nudity,
but who’s naked?
§
There are words,
but who’s talking?
§
There are assumptions,
but who performs so intently?
§
There are cages,
but where are the furry pets?
§
There’s laughter,
but who gets the joke?
§
There are values,but what are morals?
§
There’s music,
but what happened
to the boogie-woogie?
§
There’s poetry,
but what’s
the measure?
§
There are decorative trees,
but why no groves nor
ordered orchards?
§
There are wines,
but who are the vintners?
§
There’s bread,
but why can’t I
smell the baking?
§
There are grapes,
but what sweetness?
§
There are seasons,but why don’t I have
time?
§
There are embraces,
but who gets off?