for Gerrit Lansing at 75
No matter, say what you will,
when the slide comes, and it
better, or sometimes bitter knots knit
their brew against an all-encompassing
(recompensating?) agenda, not set of burdens,
nor gravity, like the image of
the cat jumping at the image
of the canary only to find
the bird has flown the loop
in a figure of love wasted
on the o’erlasting. Spear hay where
aloft is high and spare the
poltergeist faster than a whip catches
the gloom, then slides into a
hailstorm of regret.—You know what
I meant, maybe, but not what
I mean to say, to intend,
to proffer without hope for suppler
thought, a stupor a day to
drown the neighing in a sea
of bougainvilleas, vines for the marrow
of the soul’s sartorial passage to
points beyond even the imagination’s imaginary
capacities, like the day the turtle
told the teller . . .