Readings

[Note: This is inessential reading; this might be tedious even for the small (and kind) audience gathered here, but I wrote it, and enjoyed writing it, so I thought I'd post. Feel free to skip and move on to your next "reading" project.]

Concertina wire, twice,

the words: entered

my field of vision: once

in juvenilia by a general,

secondly, a poem by a

Topekan, a quick learner,

one of the under 40s the

foundation loves.

I am not incarcerated, at

war, or of an imagination

that craves boundaries

or blood, suggested or

shed. All I could hear

was the soft bellowing

of distant music, that

might have been

birdsong.

_____

The Englishman responsible

for the idea: image-nation,

told me a story in three

pages of a Japanese brush,

a French swimming pool,

a Cambodian, arthritic

swimmer & her husband:

I did not weep nor smile,

but the minutes were

strong ones that passed

by:  both noticed & un-

noticed. I can attest to

them but did not count.

_____

A white H on a blue field,

& no need to turn is a

blessing. The sounds of

ambulance, firetruck,

& cruiser are distinct

but can be read in

several ways: help,

trouble, prayer, relief,

fear:       or just go

without notice.

In the rearview: the letters

arrange themselves, even

without the noise, but

staring straight ahead

familiarity fades.  Luckily,

when need arrives

sound can be enough,

& with any luck, you’ll

never need to know

anyway.

_____

From what I can recall:

Villon’s songs were in

one voice, but several

characters, while Hugo

always sounded like

several people speaking

at once. Or was it the

other way around?

_____

And then there’s work:

Winthrop, Bradstreet,

Taylor, Edwards,

Franklin, Paine,

Wheatley, Irving,

Poe, Hawthorne,

Melville: All

weighing in their

own way these

next three weeks.

_____

A red-eye jet, I must

assume, just shook

my sleeping house

(metonymy?)

not enough to

wake the dreamers.

Isn’t noticing this

a kind of reading,

too?

_____

There is a poem that a

certain Laureate likes

that de-grades a gathering

of homeless, fire-warmers 

by suggesting that a poem

will make readers see

the cold they inhabit

more clearly after  they

finishing reading.  The

argument is actually

the poet’s, but I blame

the elder too, because

he didn’t even correct

him for failing to mention

the way the exhalations

of each man mixed with

the others & while

one choked a bit from

too much smoke or

from too many nights

outside, or too much

exhaust from the

commuters as

they pass by (not

reading a poem

but listening to a

book on tape about

global markets or the

death of journalism)

the others rotated

just enough that

he could catch his

breath before

the smoke

engulfed

his lungs.

_____

I must confess to

poly-reading,

there must ten or

twelve cracked

spines now waiting

to be shelved &

pushed back to-

gather with the

masses: a mystery,

 the  other halves of

 two collections of stories,

the rest of Stevens,

Kumin, Kenyon,

& too much Wright.

_____

Finally, a dying man

chooses, carefully,

what he reads:

those books

remaining, a

friend’s last

novel,  prayer

or curse filled

emails & online

posts, but mostly

people collecting

as culture, what he

has spent his life’s

years waging

some kind of

war on, to make

peace with an

answerless cosmos,

he writes last

dispatches from

that tropic few

 hard-living

critics survive.

There is so much

left to read,

& he keeps

adding more.

_____

There is more

that I could tell,

but, after all,

one must protect
at least some

of  his sources.