“Until recently, I thought ‘occasional poetry’ meant that you wrote only occasionally.”

Either they just die
or they get sick and die of the sickness
or they get sick, recover, then die of something else,
or they get sick, appear to recover,
then die of the same thing,
the sickness coming back 
to take another bite out of you
in the forest of your final hours.

Everything is fine—
the first bits of sun are on
the yellow flowers behind the low wall,

Suddenly, you were planting some yellow petunias
outside in the garden,

Just as Milton had to face
the problem of rain in paradise,
I have to figure out what to do with you.

I think I know what he would say
about the dream I had last night
in which my nose was lopped off in a sword fight,

I am trying to imagine that I am someone else,
a grocer, an aerialist,
a young viola player who travels
around the country in a bus full of musicians,

This is the only reality, wrote Sartre,
this public garden and its gravel paths
dappled with sunlight

The one resting now on a plant stem
somewhere deep in the vine-hung
interior of South America

It is possible to be struck by a meteor
or a single-engine plane
while reading in a chair at home.

As far as mental anguish goes,
the old painters were no fools.
They understood how the mind,

The ball at the center, visible
through the interstices of the lead webbing,
is composed possibly of jelly

God bless their children and their powder-blue suits.

In fact, I start to wonder if what we have now
is really two poems, or three, or four,
or possibly none.

This is the beginning .
Almost anything can happen.

 

The whole idea of it makes me feel 
like I’m coming down with something, 
something worse than any stomach ache 

It’s a story as famous as the three little pigs:
one evening a man says he is going out for cigarettes,
closes the door behind him and is never heard from again,

Two muscle men stand face to face
in a large field and begin an Olympic insult contest.

The sky is blue and gold like a Swedish flag

 

The dog is seated by the victrola
listening, head cocked

to the voice of his master

 

I wish my head to appear perfectly round 
and since the canvas should be of epic dimensions, 
please trace the circle with a frisbee,