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can walk without a frame, he whose exions last and saw into limbs livid still the sum, comic, dome-hosting wall shop captivating everything in a proleptic sale while sand-horse negotiates his clop versus some floor one erected in ardor prostrate again and happy penultimate slough-opening as the news that distracts from spectral sass, downing darkling you weren’t personal last Saturday as ponies cyclical laced the public grasses compulsorily before our bower got scanned despite a standup’s lawnly heath and harebells having become grammar’s shortage on the stage hussing up to a cardboard cloud passed limb from limb without its flame [ardoring][clopsome][sass]

You don’t get everything back. Is today morning or night? The radio voice says the composer is changing the place home is. When they try to put a tube down her throat, the woman beside me sobs. Nurses probe a vein as she thrashes, call the Hmong translator. Once a boy told me, in Laos he sat in a tree all night.Father pay me dollar for every man I’m shooting. When there’s water to cross, the fish, caught, get needled through gill slits. Down the dark hall, machines bleat at each bed. Eyes open and shut: flashes, detachment, vitreous gel. Her son, seven years old, comes after school, peels oranges, watches football, changing the place home is.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

In Golden Gate Park that day a man and his wife were coming along thru the enormous meadow which was the meadow of the world He was wearing green suspenders and carrying an old beat-up flute in one hand while his wife had a bunch of grapes which she kept handing out individually to various squirrels as if each were a little joke And then the two of them came on thru the enormous meadow which was the meadow of the world and then at a very still spot where the trees dreamed and seemed to have been waiting thru all time for them they sat down together on the grass without looking at each other and ate oranges without looking at each other and put the peels in a basket which they seemed to have brought for that purpose without looking at each other And then he took his shirt and undershirt off but kept his hat on sideways and without saying anything fell asleep under it And his wife just sat there looking at the birds which flew about calling to each other in the stilly air as if they were questioning existence or trying to recall something forgotten But then finally she too lay down flat and just lay there looking up at nothing yet fingering the old flute which nobody played and finally looking over at him without any particular expression except a certain awful look of terrible depression

Mown meadows skirt the standing wheat; I linger, for the hay is sweet, New-cut and curing in the sun. Like furrows, straight, the windrows run, Fallen, gallant ranks that tossed and bent When, yesterday, the west wind went A-rioting through grass and grain. To-day no least breath stirs the plain; Only the hot air, quivering, yields Illusive motion to the fields Where not the slenderest tassel swings. Across the wheat flash sky-blue wings; A goldfinch dangles from a tall, Full-flowered yellow mullein; all The world seems turning blue and gold. Unstartled, since, even from of old, Beauty has brought keen sense of her, I feel the withering grasses stir; Along the edges of the wheat, I hear the rustle of her feet: And yet I know the whole sea lies, And half the earth, between our eyes.

XVIII In Heaven, Some little blades of grass Stood before God. “What did you do?” Then all save one of the little blades Began eagerly to relate The merits of their lives. This one stayed a small way behind Ashamed. Presently God said: “And what did you do?” The little blade answered: “Oh, my lord, “Memory is bitter to me “For if I did good deeds “I know not of them.” Then God in all His splendor Arose from His throne. “Oh, best little blade of grass,” He said.

The unit of wine is the cup. Of Love , the unit is the kiss.That’s here. In Hell, the units are the gallon and the fuck. In Paradise, the drop and the glance. Ants are my hero. They debate and obey. They can sit at a table for Eight hours, drawing. They spot out the under-theorized . . . Have some. For they are as abundant here as the flecks of mica in the Iowa night sky. What are twenty-sided dishes of fancy almonds? What use jewels? He is Kālidāsa. You are nothing. Or rather, you’re a tray of stainless steel cones. Meanwhile, one opens Kumārasambhava to rainbow-colored crystals pointing every which way. Nice try. You’re a tank-builder but you refuse to build tanks. And so now you are to be watched over By three heckling birds, evilly named, discomfiting to children. ¡Fijate! you’re to be watched by three fowl, commonplace in Florida. Even these Three hearty objectionables: the blue tit, the woodpecker, and the swampcunt. I’m one to talk. I’m so twisted up, my only hope is Salena. My physical therapist, With the eyes of Athena, and the hands of a destroying eagle.

In her absence I created her image: out of the earthly the hidden heavenly commences. I am here weighing the expanse with the Jahili odes ... and absence is the guide, it is the guide. For each rhyme a tent is pitched. And for each thing blowing in the wind a rhyme. Absence teaches me its lesson: If it weren’t for the mirage you wouldn’t have been steadfast ... Then in the emptiness, I disassembled a letter from one of the ancient alphabets, and I leaned on absence. So who am I after the visitation? A bird, or a passerby amid the symbols and the memory vendors? As if I were an antique piece, as if I were a ghost sneaking in from Yabous, telling myself: Let’s go to the seven hills. Then I placed my mask on a stone, and walked as the sleepless walk, led by my dream. And from one moon to another I leapt. There is enough of unconsciousness to liberate things from their history. And there is enough of history to liberate unconsciousness from its ascension. Take me to our early years—my first girlfriend says. Leave the windows open for the house sparrow to enter your dream—I say ... then I awaken, and no city is in the city. No “here” except “there.” And no there but here. If it weren’t for the mirage I wouldn’t have walked to the seven hills ... if it weren’t for the mirage!

Proem. Although great Queen, thou now in silence lie, Yet thy loud Herald Fame, doth to the sky Thy wondrous worth proclaim, in every clime, And so has vow’d, whilst there is world or time. So great’s thy glory, and thine excellence, The sound thereof raps every human sense That men account it no impiety To say thou wert a fleshly Deity. Thousands bring off’rings (though out of date) Thy world of honours to accumulate. ‘Mongst hundred Hecatombs of roaring Verse, ‘Mine bleating stands before thy royal Hearse. Thou never didst, nor canst thou now disdain, T’ accept the tribute of a loyal Brain. Thy clemency did yerst esteem as much The acclamations of the poor, as rich, Which makes me deem, my rudeness is no wrong, Though I resound thy greatness ‘mongst the throng. The Poem. No Phoenix Pen, nor Spenser’s Poetry, No Speed’s, nor Camden’s learned History; Eliza’s works, wars, praise, can e’re compact, The World’s the Theater where she did act. No memories, nor volumes can contain, The nine Olymp’ades of her happy reign, Who was so good, so just, so learn’d, so wise, From all the Kings on earth she won the prize. Nor say I more than truly is her due. Millions will testify that this is true. She hath wip’d off th’ aspersion of her Sex, That women wisdom lack to play the Rex. Spain’s Monarch sa’s not so, not yet his Host: She taught them better manners to their cost. The Salic Law had not in force now been, If France had ever hop’d for such a Queen. But can you Doctors now this point dispute, She’s argument enough to make you mute, Since first the Sun did run, his ne’er runn’d race, And earth had twice a year, a new old face; Since time was time, and man unmanly man, Come shew me such a Phoenix if you can. Was ever people better rul’d than hers? Was ever Land more happy, freed from stirs? Did ever wealth in England so abound? Her Victories in foreign Coasts resound? Ships more invincible than Spain’s, her foe She rack’t, she sack’d, she sunk his Armadoe. Her stately Troops advanc’d to Lisbon’s wall, Don Anthony in’s right for to install. She frankly help’d Franks’(brave) distressed King, The States united now her fame do sing. She their Protectrix was, they well do know, Unto our dread Virago, what they owe. Her Nobles sacrific’d their noble blood, Nor men, nor coin she shap’d, to do them good. The rude untamed Irish she did quell, And Tiron bound, before her picture fell. Had ever Prince such Counsellors as she? Her self Minerva caus’d them so to be. Such Soldiers, and such Captains never seen, As were the subjects of our (Pallas) Queen: Her Sea-men through all straits the world did round, Terra incognitæ might know her sound. Her Drake came laded home with Spanish gold, Her Essex took Cadiz, their Herculean hold. But time would fail me, so my wit would too, To tell of half she did, or she could do. Semiramis to her is but obscure; More infamy than fame she did procure. She plac’d her glory but on Babel’s walls, World's wonder for a time, but yet it falls. Fierce Tomris(Cirus’ Heads-man,Sythians’ Queen) Had put her Harness off, had she but seen Our Amazon i’ th’ Camp at Tilbury, (Judging all valour, and all Majesty) Within that Princess to have residence, And prostrate yielded to her Excellence. Dido first Foundress of proud Carthage walls (Who living consummates her Funerals), A great Eliza, but compar’d with ours, How vanisheth her glory, wealth, and powers. Proud profuse Cleopatra, whose wrong name, Instead of glory, prov’d her Country’s shame: Of her what worth in Story’s to be seen, But that she was a rich Ægyptian Queen. Zenobia, potent Empress of the East, And of all these without compare the best (Whom none but great Aurelius could quell) Yet for our Queen is no fit parallel: She was a Phoenix Queen, so shall she be, Her ashes not reviv’d more Phoenix she. Her personal perfections, who would tell, Must dip his Pen i’ th’ Heliconian Well, Which I may not, my pride doth but aspire To read what others write and then admire. Now say, have women worth, or have they none? Or had they some, but with our Queen is’t gone? Nay Masculines, you have thus tax’d us long, But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong. Let such as say our sex is void of reason Know ‘tis a slander now, but once was treason. But happy England, which had such a Queen, O happy, happy, had those days still been, But happiness lies in a higher sphere. Then wonder not,Eliza moves not here. Full fraught with honour, riches, and with days, She set, she set, like Titan in his rays. No more shall rise or set such glorious Sun, Until the heaven’s great revolution: If then new things, their old form must retain, Eliza shall rule Albian once again. Her Epitaph. Here sleeps T H E Queen, this is the royal bed O’ th’ Damask Rose, sprung from the white and red, Whose sweet perfume fills the all-filling air, This Rose is withered, once so lovely fair: On neither tree did grow such Rose before, The greater was our gain, our loss the more. Another. Here lies the pride of Queens, pattern of Kings: So blaze it fame, here’s feathers for thy wings. Here lies the envy’d, yet unparallel’d Prince, Whose living virtues speak (though dead long since). If many worlds, as that fantastic framed, In every one, be her great glory famed.

I’d dislocated my life, so I went to the zoo. It was December but it wasn’t December. Pansies just planted were blooming in well-groomed beds. Lovers embraced under the sky’s Sunday blue. Children rode around and around on pastel trains. I read the labels stuck on every cage the way people at museums do, art being less interesting than information. Each fenced-in plot had a map, laminated with a stain to tell where in the world the animals had been taken from. Rhinos waited for rain in the rhino-colored dirt, too grief-struck to move their wrinkles, their horns too weak to ever be hacked off by poachers for aphrodisiacs. Five white ducks agitated the chalky waters of a duck pond with invisible orange feet while a little girl in pink ruffles tossed pork rinds at their disconsolate backs. This wasn’t my life! I’d meant to look with the wise tough eye of exile, I wanted not to anthropomorphize, not to equate, for instance, the lemur’s displacement with my displacement. The arched aviary flashed with extravagance, plumage so exuberant, so implausible, it seemed cartoonish, and the birdsongs unintelligible, babble, all their various languages unravelling— no bird can get its song sung right, separated from models of its own species. For weeks I hadn’t written a sentence, for two days I hadn’t spoken to an animate thing. I couldn’t relate to a giraffe— I couldn’t look one in the face. I’d have said, if anyone had asked, I’d been mugged by the Gulf climate. In a great barren space, I watched a pair of elephants swaying together, a rhythm too familiar to be mistaken, too exclusive. My eyes sweated to see the bull, his masterful trunk swinging, enter their barn of concrete blocks, to watch his obedient wife follow. I missed the bitter tinny Boston smell of first snow, the huddling in a cold bus tunnel. At the House of Nocturnal Mammals, I stepped into a furtive world of bats, averted my eyes at the gloomy dioramas, passed glassed-in booths of lurking rodents— had I known I’d find what I came for at last? How did we get here, dear sloth, my soul, my sister? Clinging to a tree-limb with your three-toed feet, your eyes closed tight, you calm my idleness, my immigrant isolation. But a tiny tamarin monkey who shares your ersatz rainforest runs at you, teasing, until you move one slow, dripping, hairy arm, then the other, the other, the other, pulling your tear-soaked body, its too-few vertebrae, its inferior allotment of muscles along the dead branch, going almost nowhere slowly as is humanly possible, nudged by the bright orange primate taunting, nipping, itching at you all the time, like ambition.