Pweth

For a while I thought it might be pwelth,

rhymes with wealth. But no, pweth, with

breath. Accidentally, I wrote my PhD thesis

on the hypno-glyph of the teleutonic pweth

but a spot of white paint dropped from a brush

had more pweth. Through extreme concentration

which is the absence of concentration,

I’ve been able to stop the pweth,

to hold it like a snow globe in my hands.

Trick is not to shake.

I always shake, and rattle, I’m cold, in hurrious need,

don’t you hear time’s finked imbroglio in the weeds?

Ornery fritillary. Carefully,

I try not to throw myself out the window

to land epistemologically in the Lacanian phlox.

Eric Satie’s birthday comes and goes

and barely a notice on public radio.

Artificially, the sonnets of Shakespeare

flavor today’s soap operas. Pweth,

more pweth, another wiggle room in hotel havoc.

In poker, the Lord holds all the aces

yet He bluffs. You want proof?

Go to the liquor store. Here’s a picture

of the tent beneath the particle collector

where the young physicist waits for part of this

to become part of that. One lesson is the smaller

the calibrations, the bigger things get.

Hours in front of the mirror, still the mirror forgets.

Hours in front of the mirror, now you’re all reflection.

Pweth. A single elixir befuddles the knight.

Inexpertly, the hurricane approacheth

the used car lot. Doth pweth originate within

to dart about the world like a dry cleaner’s bag

and snag in a peach tree

or is it an imminence of the world,

a doorbell that rings whoever presses it,

or is it what’s behind the world

making funny faces? By the end

of the reception, the bride’s dress

looks like flypaper. Apocalyptically,

the stuffed bunny lies on the fainting couch.

How I loved looking for the pweth

through Science Hall, past the jars of creatures

who drowned themselves in yellow fluid

just to find out their names

then out the back, past the bent, gristled

pipes that looked much happier in the freezing rain

then through the Iliadic doors

of the Humanities Building like passing backwards

from the Age of Reason to the Age of Sweaty Dreams.

Antiquity had wrecked me,

I always felt snuck up on

like a bird in an aquarium, the message’s

necessity always equaled by the likelihood

of its being misunderstood.

Now everyone I talk to

is in a different time zone.

What do you see out your window? I call.

Night, you idiot, they hang up.

But what is darkness compared to staggering with pweth?

Calm? I am calm.