The Brooklyn Rail

 

I.

 

You thought this would be

a dance lesson,

things were easier then.

No marimbas, no clarinets;

only a longing for the fun

to begin.

Rain came down.

Nothing seems as remote

as the days you didn’t

have to think about it:

always out there,

gushing out. Control

was required to stop ideas

from overflowing.

You did your job well,

you killed them like an Easter

baby chicken.

II.

 

Rasputin was on the lookout.

Magdalene had multipurpose hair:

Kumernis had it in stocks

where and when she needed it,

on her beard especially. Anything

to keep the Barbarians away

will do. Chopped noses,

rotten chicken stuffed in corsets.

We were told that the demons

would come out in Maine.

They hate recollections and certainty.

Their favorite verb is to sabotage.

 

III.

 

Rasputin helps one to recognize inspiration; but, oh, what could

imagination be?

 

To retrieve, to plunder, to forge.

 

To be bored.

 

To rip kites so they may stay on the ground.

 

To forget jokes and misunderstand common sense.

 

To sit for hours without getting up.

 

To count words and people and only remember their numbers.

 

To listen closely to what loons could be trying to say.

 

To permutate dots so that lines are never identical to each other.

 

To return to known places and act always the same, thus the slight-

est change might become apparent.

 

To force things to happen.

 

To pretend there’s meaning when all that comes out is a “My dog

loves me and he’s no showboat.”

 

To think there’s nothing to say.

 

To leap from canopy to can openers to can open her.

 

You’ve begun, now use your props.