|
Motmot of the Genus Electron
A poem starts off
You do this, you do that.
The “you” is one of three people:
you, me, or the poet about to hurl
malisons at himself
across the room.
When the “you” is me,
I refuse the dumb things I’m given to do
just so someone can make a poem,
and you should do the same.
Infernal, internal— that’s possession,
nine-tenths of Natural Law.
Know it first by the coarsening
of the discourse, naturally.
Meanwhile,
you are now a motmot of the genus Electron,
a keel-billed or a broad-billedmotmot.
In the neotropics,
someone wrote
FLIPPER RULES
on a lone wall and,
40 years ago 4,000 miles away,
on brick in your neighborhood.
The bird of you remembers:
the storefront, the steps down,
the crisp tom-tom coming from within.
|
