I dream of people I don’t like. Not when
I knew them, not now. Unforgiving, like
An emperor, pensioning off delators.
My dreams delate. They say, I am the one.
A pot of lampreys and a plot of ground
For anyone who didn’t see my face
Remembering. That girl. That test. That time
Nothing went right, and I was told a tale.
A ribbon and a farmhouse. A fast horse.
A purple shirt, imperial, for you,
If you don’t know me and you never did.
Never since that one night have I attended
A party as a mushroom—not that I'm
Too proud to be a fungus, though the absence
Of chlorophyll and the proud necessity
Of feeding on, what shall we say? defunct
Organic matters doesn't suggest ballrooms.
It's more that we are only flora once,
Some roses, spinach some, we soon outgrow
Our vegetable natures. Aged between
An ugly plant and lesser carnivore,
I fared better than most. And when I saw
The lamp and found my motor skills, I yet,
In the way of a vermiform appendix,
Concealed a mushroom nature. Though by night
They come and go, by day, if you can pick
The right one, they afford a minor garnish.
A foot of snow descended on the house,
All fall at once and we pretended joy
At such a purty fluffiness, and broke
Our backs and shovel blades, and prayed that spring,
Spring would arrive, but not because of us,
The snow grows grass and lubricates the bulbs
Stripped from their husks it promised and delivered.
Summer, which disbelieves in snow, will swear
Sweat is the moisture agriculture named,
But summer lies, and winter lasts: within
The master bedroom wall a cache of snow
Waits and concedes no melting, never melts.
So
Auden married Erika, der Mann's
Daughter,
because that's what a bugger does,
Which
doesn't seem to have disturbed the plans
Of
anyone, except the beast that was.
Nice
story. Famous names. The gentile touch
Of
charity, and no Mann shared his beds.
Just
don't believe that we believe too much
Of
what such great men portage in their heads
From
Alpha to Omega. There were those
Abandoned,
which was not the fault of verse;
A
little more, perhaps, a debt that prose
Has
not repaid; but when the starving curse,
They
do not mention villanelles or myth
Or
those who aimed intentions, one by one,
At
celebrated, artificial kith
And
never felt contrition from a son.
Edgier, maybe. Nevertheless, I am
King of the Cowboys, Lord of the Saving Grace,
The Prince of Pizza, OMG Duke of Earl.
And late to my own funeral, if what
I see is what there is, reality
A cognomen for disappointment, cheese
Spritzed from a spray can, Gandalf with a sawn
Lady in half, too grey to sing the blues.
Birthdays! I tell me. Birthdays! Let them bring
Adoration and single malt and straw
Spun from gold on an old potholder frame.
Maybe I'll let them stay to pay the bills
For Gro-Lights that can't remember when to stop.
King of the Cowboys, closing down the range.
The worms are tapping out. The grass
Has taken all it can, but rain
Perseveres. Down the asphalt main
The cars sail onwards. No one has
Observed the like before, they say.
They have. But that was yesterday,
And rain evaporates. Our dreams
Will not hold water. When we dove,
We suffocated, and we throve
Beached. We are landlocked, and, it seems,
We get along quite swimmingly
Once, quite deserted, all at sea.
