The Withering of the State

Many things will still change,
other flags fib and sing,
different ideologies may march—
geese look for water—
other people will straddle the globe,
perhaps the dogs will reign
and calculators make abortions an abomination.

But we can whistle for it;
these cold fists squeezing
the juice from our heads
will also spurn deeper
(can the wind be stopped?):
the curs in their sputniks
will not prevent our discharge.

I'll start wearing a hat
to keep in the dry goat,
you will ask for flatter shoes
for your waddling,
our eyes will shy away from light,
our nails and our skins grow slacker.

Dear fellow mollusk, even a young wench
could not soothe the shivering
of King David's knees
(can the state eventually issue stoppers?):
where the mole campaigns
the most fanatic onion must mold.

But one illusion will not wane:
even when we're hollowed
with all appendages, trimmings,
tools and props, our very lights crocked,
my toothless hand must continue
babbling in your deaf ear,
my senile tentacles
will want to delve on.

So that at times,
as when we were young,
we may yet want to love again
with croaking throats.

And perhaps then, as now, it will shrivel
to this old-fangled, let us say,
poem of state.