My
contemporaries? She's a hysteric; he's a fool . . .
Given this rage to lunacy's prefecture,
Whether or not he made love to her with a fork--
Beautiful ruins, worthless birds.
Who broods over an ink blot
In the Black Book of Faust?
"There is a modesty and reticence
In these poems, so tender or
Rare for his gender, it is
Levity once called light.
It is joy in minor splendor.
Forest to fortress,
Intelligence is its ruler."
Oneiric horror invested the faces
Of kidnapped women thought once
Lovely Agrippa's determined surrender
Surrounds us never contending
Ever contented worlds whirl
Under birds. Herons wear
Thin air. Smart Siamese spies
Split the enemy's sympathies.
It was kind of me to disguise my mind
This way until Thursday . . .
"The Law of Identity freely disports
With what equals its self, alone.
The lowest common denominator
In any exchange of equivalents-
You want to talk to me now about money?
Well, I guess we're fresh right the fuck
Out of equivalents around here
You freaking frou-frou, and didn't
You come to the wrong place!
You think maybe The Absolute Degraded Nothing
Is two blocks on down the East Side?
Yeah, it's gonna cost you a lot of money.
You wouldn't know it was any god damned good,
If it didn't cost a lot of money . . ."
Plato wrote our shadows play
Like laundry on a line.
Do you know who in myth
The parents of Eros are?
Red star. My heart.
What goes without saying
At times finds its voice.
Spontaneity is preeminent in the acts of love.
Let's call a truce. Originality
Is closer to result.
Adopting an artistic pose,
She attaches a desperate sign to
Chance encounters with strangers.
"Don't push that button, take off all your clothes."
The stuttering of crows. Licorice and derision.
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