No single excess, nothing jerrybuilt
or squandered in a fit of thriftlessness
accounts for what we've ended with. Despite

I hoist the cat up in the basket of
a forty-foot-long picking pole and give

it a wild ride whipping the pole around

Where are my robes, my sword, the minted coins
inscribed Pros Doxan…? I ascend my throne.
When the Bishop, bearing unction, comes

Not the kiss alone
      but an essence of kiss,
its dark matter left undisclosed

 Not the tired figures of our own fatigue,
our misplaced envy, sleep eternal, peace
in the blank heaven of complete belonging.

Flustered (words always made him flustered),
He thought of saying never mind, but instead
Changed the subject. She, the listener, listened

It could have been a matter of modesty
It could have been the gold sewn in your dress
You might even have feared for your chastity

 Who can explain the tears in his eyes, realizing
the historical moment crossing into the present,
mountains behind the orchestra at Epidaurus,

At the back of a Point Reyes ravine
Mescaline, three powdery silver piles
Poured on knife blades and then and there licked clean.

Poetry is to jazz
as literature is to music
as Lake Como is to the Arno River