Wednesday, February 13, 2008

A Toy Engine


A Wall (Cap and Nail)

Here a lack
Of assemblage, a
Measure of off-

Hand wheedling asserts
Itself, and one
Tromps the ochre

Earth in clay’d
Up boots, or
Snow-laced sneakers,

Making tracks for
The distant instantaneous,
Yeah. New music’s

Disagreably whack vigor,
Quel jeux. If
A thing gels

Up florid, rid
It of its
Formal trance leaf-

Letting with haw-
Spittle, drool, or
A brick. Pool

Desires together, or
Heap one’s disgust
In a mound,

An autochthonous bump
Or box label’d
Mio caro canonico,

Surreptitious, syrup’d, sapped.
Recontext a puissant
Insobriety, dash off

Mark’d insolences, caulk-
Gun one’s plow-
Boy flibbertigibbits. Try

To make lines
Conflate a motor-
Mouth’d inexhaustible sluice-

Dipping (desert clime)
With a Tipperary-
Yen, a chary

Soul-ambuscading wench-
Abductress authenticity adequate
To the time.

Do it eagerly.
Accuse with precise
Dollops of mawk

And haemorrhage. A
Repertoire that yields
When struck or

Stuck in committee,
That log-rolling choir.
My only practice

Is the va
Et vient
sack-trafficking
In quire inventories,

Meddlesome ledgers of
Sleight of hand
Men, or my

Train jumps whatever
Track it’s laid
Down, and spares

The hog-tied
Damsel who balances
Nape and heel

Against the rails
In a japery
Of truth, or

Shrieks “alack” or
“Alas” through a
Handkerchief knot’d with

Artless negligence and
Reft, or my
Name isn’t Lionel.

Man Log-Rolling with Pole, c. 1925