Some Clouds
The goons amass with sub-
human intensity and we go
stoical and brave. Say things
like: “You recall the summer
of Donna Summer?” Or, bitter
cold, fuss inaudibly about that
number call’d “Pass the Koutchie”
written by the Leroy Sibbles /
Jackie Mittoo “duo” and perform’d
by the Mighty Diamonds: unconquerable
roots reggae. A series of
loud outbursts probably meaning I
ought to “revamp the chaos”
within, the way Nietzsche claim’d
the Greeks did: “This is
a parable for each one
of us: he must reform
the chaos in himself by
‘thinking himself back’ into true
needs.” Rather like Flaubert’s affinity
for the preternatural rough-housing
of kids, stomping amongst the paint
pots, flinging gobs of tiny
snakes skyward, &c. Even “whilom
flouryng & languagyng in eloquence
facundious.” Pronunciamiento Gustavo: Ils sont
dans le vrai. In cahoots.
In the money. In Abraham’s
bosom. Now if none of
the fourteen thousand species of
ants record’d terrestrially, myrmicine stingers
or the kinder formicids please
you, know that a scratch’d
violinist is spinning out rachitic
memos with gut industry, doing
the scrub work, bow hand
needs work. We all need
work. So Marianne Moore writes
“The name Squibb a hundred
years ago meant ‘ether’”—either
you know that or you
look it up. What’s a
scupper? Out of the Old
French escopir meaning “to spit”:
“An opening in the side
of a ship, level with
the deck, a scupper is design’d
to allow water to run
off of its own accord.”
Comical and absolute, a privy
scheme and a parlor trick.
Everything that is involuntary succumbs.
