As/Is







7.29.2005



Melange

Take a spinet or harpsichord and split
it into thin strips for making hats, bonnets, or baskets.
Warm over a fire made of dried buffalo-dung.
Flip once, letting it land in the dust
of the last sand-trap between you and the green--
heads, you lose; tails, you lose.
Place a silicon wafer on your tongue,
and call it Jesus.

Lips teetering on the brinks of coffee mugs,
we chattered beside the halting brook,
green ferns standing all about.

"Into this wild Abyss the warie fiend
Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while."

The point of being, doing . . .
rather like finding in an East End junk shop
a postcard photo of a yodeling group
from your hometown, and yet conjuring up
succulent meals for your friends despite
the wartime austerities you, among others, faced.

--Halvard Johnson