A man awakes every morningand instead of reading the newspaperreads Act V of Othello.He sips his coffee and is contentthat this is the news he needsas his wife looks on helplessly.

I am thinking of poets who haven't written well in yearsbut who rubbed against the sun twenty years ago--Aren't they in their own kinds of prisons too?

From ragbag, stumblebum, peripatetic loutTo bonfire of catnip that burns itself out--Bristled sack of hiss & clawsCinched at the maw--

In that house I builta bonfire that illuminatedthe fecund earth around it.And in that split-levelmy friend Tommy, only eightteeth left in his whole head,dug a huge illegal graveto bury his father's packhorse.He marched that sumpterinto the dark study and shot its head on the leftso it would fall right.That night, as if to arguewith the day,Karen and I made loveon the front lawn of the mansionone cul-de-sac down,four feet awayfrom what would bea window crackedopen to allow the outsidein.

leads to Bear Down--Bear Downgives way to little crown--Crown concedes the Head--then Head produces All--Snip the fruity cord--little King begins to bawlthen grows bored--So begins his fall--

The words I speak to these chairsmust be silencing.It has stunned theminto a profound emptiness.No creaking from the gallery--no James Joyce here, nor Malory--An unknown author in a very large chain--can't you hear me rattling?

Out in this profane city,sometimes sidewalksseem the only cement that connects us,pressed by the sacred strangerswe will never touch.

I have nothing but duct-taped syntax to offer them--noise of jury-rigged verse, of entire days burnedby the focus of a foreman's glare, the labored breathof an exhausted ride homewhile she sings in a tiara and capeto tuxedoed men and bespangled women.Yet the world sounds most honest to mewhen its timing chain is slightly off.How it revs, how it almost sputters outon any given evening after a long day of work.

Little bucktoothed alligatorready to taste my bills.Make something suffer.Make something stick.