The Men
Like that lion on the stamp of the
New York Public Library! Is it Astor,
Lenox and Tilden in composite? Like an ascot
blending with swept-back locks
away from the arch of the half-closed eye!
In the fact of a whole head in its halo of motto,
like a coin, is it the final pursuit of such men
to stock a library with rare books
on a marble avenue, with an exhibit
this go-round of “utopias”, an inevitable
speculation with the bums & the rich
brothers in desultoriness studying
Jefferson’s handwriting in a fair copy
of the Declaration of Independence?
Ice grips the steps of stopped hands.
Violin wood of the reading room,
violet snow in the window.
You said you loved a photocopied book
like a keeper of mysteries, like a visitor
to libraries, under the hieroglyph
of light rays
or the trompe l’oeil skylight
of perpetual sunset (or dawn?)
It zipped
along the wool blanket with flashes
lighting up the dark. They gathered into
a tooth that nipped when I reached out
of a repetitive dream.
“Come to bed,” I said.
“No, why don’t you sit up with me awhile?
The mountebank insomnia has me.”
You called me to the window to see a man
hail a cab. Had a hand in the writing
of the Russian constitution.
A gratuity,
and aren’t I a connoisseur?
Cloud-To-Cloud Correspondence
Mr. If-Then, you have
10 minutes
to make out with this painting.
Roman numerals
like “Aryballos in the Form of a Hedgehog”
round off.
What kind of day is it out there?
It’s “Concerto for Half a Piano”
and right half of the brain.
“Put suet in a dead Christmas tree, and draw the birds.”
But what is it supposed to be?
Many of us have discovered a kind or species of day
and lacked a registry:
“Today downgrades the Minotaur to Bullwinkle!”
or the sort of day actuaries interview you
about defenestrated busts.
All kinds of days. Unlike the tedium of the tyranny
I used to live under:
“No twin dove
for you til grown up, we let you love.”
Later, when I want to be a great painting, I must ask
what shall I be of.
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