Poem 2

For Elizabeth B. and the love she inspires

She's up late talking to the moon machine people again, scheming and pleading for just one envoy of her future selves; It would spare her so much suffering yet to come. But they giggle. The reception cackles, and you know when they all start talking at once, they're just waggling the dial through the gambit of frequencies, bidding willy nilly, obstreperous, obsequious, entertaining inquiries insultingly unserious, tossed round stock exchanges long sucked dry of all save wild gambits subsidized by teething tedious democracies idly swapping sequins, maws, oyster shells for nubs of the umbilicus mundi minus the odd cyclops eye ball, still used into their babbling dotage to mint monopoly money onto crumpled bill marquees creased with the verdigris patinas of accumulated residues thumbs rubs have worn with use to smooth the wrinkles on those self same effigies embossed and stamped on bullion cubes or billiards balls abused by pirate kings and young girls' moods which rocked the hammocks in the cargo hulls of vessels, either lightly lapping at the silken lines of love a lullaby, or hurling cyclones from her forehead's whorl a massive, flaming missive to split the ship and burn the night for when she was good, she was very, very good. But come antipode, she'd storm the globe; when she was bad, she was wicked. And for that the moon men loved her most. They lived for nights when off the breeze they'd catch the whiff, the light seemed off cast by their servers agitated blinking, diffusely glinting over a wrinkled sea of piques and dips which now began to fizz and chop churned by heirs who'd lounged too long between sargasso sheets dappled with idle dabbles of coral reefs that got cooked hot, till up they rose, at first grumpy to be roused, then agitating sweat drenched, tousled, discombobulating an incessant misspelling of misplaced keys vertiginously making notes for later that grow greater, but never a disaster the art of losing isn't hard to master though it leads to losing further, losing faster ones cries and cries, one's eyes turn red, in bed, sit up turn on the light in the middle of the night; They shout "Something is not right!" In they rush. "Fast, then faster!" Broadcaster sirens wail to fill the vacuum Winds toss waves up and down! up and down! The billow's crown, the troughs have teeth that rake a skein of crème brûlée spray breakdown cake plagiarizing egotism into pantheists a first bite too rich to resist I six it, I seven it, I eight it Blowout. The time has come for ghosts to shout. Rouse the rabble, storm the state, let the wild rumpus out.

I have heard the mermaids singing each to each.
I do not think they will sing to me.

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo te amo
Quare id faciam fortasse requīris,
Nescīō. But sentieced ... Dinged,
Halved idself id est,
Non Torro vivo alcun, obs of epiwo
inside tehm. Senza tema
d'infamia ti excrunciondo.

Ex Libris