Letter 31 – Refugee of the Giant Slaughter

 

I wanted to sing the body electric   but had to

sell it for blood money.  I’ll sing provided the notes evoke

myths (or the tones.)  Blood money’s another way to sing Slaughter

not comrade or neighbor.  The neighbor tree drops plums like bombs not

poems like flower petals in one last August gasp.

 

w/

each pass of Mars   the

poem gets dimmer

goes limp on us or is it August   the month I mean   the drill

a little intense at this hr   a

little manic   a dream of being in Canada  -  Ontario  -  it’s just a

myth that’s a sea   it’s a huge lake but

 

For now

my dream of it is me as giant waves crashing

sins my cat will have nothing to do w/.   He does not like salt water (as if

I do)  nor do these waves  (these dream waves)  have the edges he cd

live for, no.

In the dream of Toronto and baseball &

the old woman   who does not approve of my attire  (holy sweats)  -  not ready to set the

town afire, no.    A refugee

of the giant

Slaughter  and she might sympathize knowing our plight   hay – hate – gasoline burning

 

books like this one   might be first on the pyre   but poems recited

are like

the books of the mind  -

souls   she says.   She who is from Canada   and made

that giant Alberta mountain

keep standing w/ a stern word or two    THAT combined w/

the hand gesture to end all hand gestures  tho not Italian.

Stairways  -  she says aping Jacob  -  the possibilities of metaphorical ones keeps me

sane.

 

2:37AM - 8.31.03

(Phrases taken from Ted Berrigan Whitman in Black,

Sheri-D Wilson – Arithmetic of Shape &

Andrei Codrescu De Rerum Natura. )