Classic Poem

If yon archaic torso says anything —
You must not change your life on my account.

You twelve or fourteen minutes just before
The poem or drawing is consigned to paper
Seem given over to a jurisdictional dispute
Between Apollo and his bête noir Saint John,
With Stomach, their blood-brother, acting
As amicus curiae; or so he states.

These lines could almost as well find themselves
A piano sonata titled " North Carolina. "

Dodecaphonic algorithm, pat.

A general calling of exotic names,
Like the first day of the first grade. . . .

When the appellate compromise subsides,
Ink moves.
Pennies passing through a purse,
In one ear and out again
(One day they'll put your money where your eyes are),
As if vanishing, robust or puny, up a country chimney.
Or falling to sleep or wake,
A destroyer getting underway, all gone.

The black line exiles the rest of the universe
With a sense less of banishment
Than of augmentation nearly nuptial.

It remains banishment, nevertheless,
Beyond the legal clamor of appeal.

All engines back full. Rudder amidships.

A second black line becomes one with the first,
And on.
" A nose, " you say; " an alpha,
An omega. " Or " an octave in the left hand. "

We render honors to the Arizona .

Whatever it is a sign of, the line remains. . . .
One's normal dream of killing many wolves.