ago,
having no sense of humor, or just barely. The frightened sleep in parks,
though motionless palm fronds announce a quiet evening. You can get over
bouts of humor best by not going indoors
when the moon is full. The lion stood by the bridge
so long it might have been a sculpture, but in the end loped sheepishly away.
And we have to figure out what these coins mean, not knowing the language.
It might be—still, there’s no point in being greedy
before one means to—has to—but if it was a game in the beginning
it must be still, despite inertia. It’s getting to be the end of a dance marathon
and though people keep cutting in, they do so with an air of resignation.
No point in taking further lessons, just at the moment anyway.
An enormous sense of release hushes the impatience
in the grass, the wayward chirruping about something. One can still stand up,
and that’s plenty, under the circumstances. Besides, we’ll not leave you alone yet;
the bench you warmed for us looks inviting; soon stars will be out
and you can walk home peering into the distance, hoping
someone will pick us up. Easy now, the stair treads
have come along again, and soon, soon
the bed will drench us with sleep and the surprising leap into the middle of a dream,
striking pennants, pavilions, bringing all natural activity to a halt as it wonders
about this, tests the current, supposes everything
must be OK or we’d have heard. In the next town there’s a grist mill and a blacksmith,
or was that part of a dream, or did it really exist in a past
one can focus on, extracting its kernel until, like a ship, the shell turns round,
advances on us and speculation is undone for today. And we sobbed into those sails
sometimes, yet the gryphon never wavered until the third blast of a trombone
soothed it and it fell asleep. Now the dangers were tiny ones, but everywhere;
it would have been a good time to stay home, but alas that was a concept
foreign to these steep, peripheral times, these crags like sandpaper
dividing a no-good, swamp-green sky, and all the while
you were just a bit younger, enough to complain and not understand
why all the women stifled sobs and I was appointed to meet you
and bring you to this place, locus of many diagonals
without beginning or end except for the sense of them a place of confluence
provides. So, as is the custom here, I pulled the hood down to cover most of my face.
In a twinkling the mood had changed. The hiatus in the manuscript
buttoned itself up.
And there were many sets of fraternal twins on earth
to share in a new sense of disparity and reward everyone for what they would have
done anyway, inasmuch as there always comes a time when congratulations fall
just short of the doormat, loved ones are sorely tried, and associates
go blindly about their business, some business at any rate, all to keep the shelving
from imminent collapse by destroying relationships
that were good in the past but have now come to naught
as we see each day in the papers. And if one swoons, another will follow suit
until the entire populace is restive. And surely no one can locate the good in that
except by poring over miles of yellowing folios, which seems unlikely, so it’s back
into bed with us again, and that’s the way it has to keep happening
for any of us to remain unaware very long of secret provisions and codicils
in the charter it is imperative not to mention—not, you understand, out of a spirit
of fair play but in the ultimate interests of a deeper yet darker strain of being
we have to live toward if anyone is to get any good out of the colossal, foundering
experiment, the braintrust of fiends and werewolves who lie perched just out of
the reach of sleep, ready to reclaim territories surrendered in a moment
of temporary insanity, and others as well that were never in question
until they became bones of contention just seconds ago in the new climate
of sharpened political
having no sense of humor, or just barely. The frightened sleep in parks,
though motionless palm fronds announce a quiet evening. You can get over
bouts of humor best by not going indoors
when the moon is full. The lion stood by the bridge
so long it might have been a sculpture, but in the end loped sheepishly away.
And we have to figure out what these coins mean, not knowing the language.
It might be—still, there’s no point in being greedy
before one means to—has to—but if it was a game in the beginning
it must be still, despite inertia. It’s getting to be the end of a dance marathon
and though people keep cutting in, they do so with an air of resignation.
No point in taking further lessons, just at the moment anyway.
An enormous sense of release hushes the impatience
in the grass, the wayward chirruping about something. One can still stand up,
and that’s plenty, under the circumstances. Besides, we’ll not leave you alone yet;
the bench you warmed for us looks inviting; soon stars will be out
and you can walk home peering into the distance, hoping
someone will pick us up. Easy now, the stair treads
have come along again, and soon, soon
the bed will drench us with sleep and the surprising leap into the middle of a dream,
striking pennants, pavilions, bringing all natural activity to a halt as it wonders
about this, tests the current, supposes everything
must be OK or we’d have heard. In the next town there’s a grist mill and a blacksmith,
or was that part of a dream, or did it really exist in a past
one can focus on, extracting its kernel until, like a ship, the shell turns round,
advances on us and speculation is undone for today. And we sobbed into those sails
sometimes, yet the gryphon never wavered until the third blast of a trombone
soothed it and it fell asleep. Now the dangers were tiny ones, but everywhere;
it would have been a good time to stay home, but alas that was a concept
foreign to these steep, peripheral times, these crags like sandpaper
dividing a no-good, swamp-green sky, and all the while
you were just a bit younger, enough to complain and not understand
why all the women stifled sobs and I was appointed to meet you
and bring you to this place, locus of many diagonals
without beginning or end except for the sense of them a place of confluence
provides. So, as is the custom here, I pulled the hood down to cover most of my face.
In a twinkling the mood had changed. The hiatus in the manuscript
buttoned itself up.
And there were many sets of fraternal twins on earth
to share in a new sense of disparity and reward everyone for what they would have
done anyway, inasmuch as there always comes a time when congratulations fall
just short of the doormat, loved ones are sorely tried, and associates
go blindly about their business, some business at any rate, all to keep the shelving
from imminent collapse by destroying relationships
that were good in the past but have now come to naught
as we see each day in the papers. And if one swoons, another will follow suit
until the entire populace is restive. And surely no one can locate the good in that
except by poring over miles of yellowing folios, which seems unlikely, so it’s back
into bed with us again, and that’s the way it has to keep happening
for any of us to remain unaware very long of secret provisions and codicils
in the charter it is imperative not to mention—not, you understand, out of a spirit
of fair play but in the ultimate interests of a deeper yet darker strain of being
we have to live toward if anyone is to get any good out of the colossal, foundering
experiment, the braintrust of fiends and werewolves who lie perched just out of
the reach of sleep, ready to reclaim territories surrendered in a moment
of temporary insanity, and others as well that were never in question
until they became bones of contention just seconds ago in the new climate
of sharpened political
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