LITMIR.BIZ

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      Why should you believe in magic,

      pretend an interest in astrology

      or the tarot? Truth is, you are

      free, and what might happen to you

      today, nobody knows. And your

      personality may undergo a radical

      transformation in the next half

      hour. So it goes. You are consumed

      by your faith in justice, your

      hope for a better day, the rightness

      of fate, the dreams, the lies

      the taunts—Nobody gets what he

      wants. A dark star passes through

      you on your way home from

      the grocery: never again are you

      the same—an experience which is

      impossible to forget, impossible

      to share. The longing to be pure

      is over. You are the stranger

      who gets stranger by the hour.

Shadowboxing

      Sometimes you almost get a punch in.

      Then you may go for days without even seeing him,

      or his presence may become a comfort

      for a while.

      He says: I saw you scrambling last night

      on your knees and hands.

      He says: How come you always want to be

      something else, how come you never take your life

      seriously?

      And you say: Shut up! Isn’t it enough

      I say I love you, I give you everything!

      He moves across the room with his hand

      on his chin, and says: How great you are!

      Come here, let me touch you, you say.

      He comes closer. Come close, you say.

      He comes closer. Then. Whack! And

      you start again, moving around and around

      the room, the room which grows larger

      and larger, darker and darker. The black moon.

Images of Little Compton, Rhode Island

      Here the tendons in the swans’ wings stretch,

      feel the tautness of their futuristic necks,

      imagine their brains’ keyhole accuracy,

      envy their infinitely precise desires.

      A red-nosed Goodyear zeppelin emerges from the mist

      like an ethereal albino whale on drugs.

      One wanders around a credible hushed town.

      Mosquito hammering through the air

      with a horse’s power: there will be no cameramen.

      We will swap bodies maybe

      giving the old one a shove.

      That’s an awful lot of work for you I said

      and besides look at your hands,

      there are small fires in the palms,

      there is smoke squirting from every pore.

      O when all is lost,

      when we have thrown our shoes in the sea,

      when our watches have crawled off into weeds,

      our typewriters have finally spelled perhaps

      accidentally the unthinkable word,

      when the rocks loosen and the sea anemones

      welcome us home with their gossamer arms

      dropping like a ship from the stars,

      what on earth shall we speak or think of,

      and who do you think you are?

From the Hole

      A horse-drawn rocket

      climbs the wooden hill:

      behind it two or three friends

      are sharing their tobacco: their hats

      are beautiful like small pieces of

      coal on their heads

      fostering goodwill.

      I’m standing in this hole, see,

      and I’m going to holler out:

      “Good riddance to bad rubbish!”

      and “I’m sorry if I was a menace!”

      “Howdy doody, milkman travail!”

      “So long buoys and grills.”

      Like a harp

      burning on an island

      nobody knows about.

The Trap

      Inside the old chair

      I found another chair;

      though smaller, I liked

      sitting in it better.

      Inside that chair

      I found another chair;

      though smaller, in

      many ways I felt

      good sitting in it.

      Inside that chair

      I found another chair;

      it was smaller and

      seemed to be made

      just for me.

      Inside that chair,

      still another;

      it was very small,

      so small I could

      hardly get out of it.

      Inside that chair

      I found yet another;

      and in that, another,

      and another, until

      I was sitting in

      a chair so small

      it would be difficult

      to say I was sitting

      in a chair at all.

      I could not rise

      or fall, and no one

      could catch me.

Twilight Sustenance Hiatus

      The relentless confetti of dollars!

      I’d prefer to kiss that silent chipmunk

      on the roadside while a tiny ocean

      of dandelion seeds arranges a gray

      throne on his ear! I have no “final”

      vows to take tonight, though your hair

      might be floating down the Ohio.

      Chameleons can march around a small room

      if they want. I could sell gasoline

      on the desert, though I would miss

      the

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