The Poet
Harmonious lovely girl is writing me a letter.
Her shirt falls open
at the dark desk where she sits.
Oh she takes a thousand different forms,
that is the truth of it. Maybe she is wearing jodhpurs
or is nearly naked, tuning her lute.
Go from the window, my dear,
you cannot be lodged here . . .
Her voice when she begins to sing
is always mildly troubling.
I check out her busy November schedule
and note that I am nowhere in it.
She is like an ocean made of plastic bags.
No one can swim there
though sometimes the truly brazen float.
You hear applause each time they hit another boat.
The rest of us sit and watch the barrage.
We are mostly missing persons.
We hate October.
We hate October and all its sinkings.
Well I will ride out through the furious woods
where nothing is harmonious.
My life has become almost a scream
from all the galloping. There is nothing
new under the sun, yet this is where
my best ideas come from. Yes, most of us
are mostly harmless: we all have tote bags
which we tote. Meanwhile the high trees rest,
the children sleep, the wind gets up.
A horse is more than its harness.