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

When Dionysus and Apollo met,
the gods were angry (the goddesses were sleeping)
that two such equals and such opposites

My nephew stands at the door. I pretend to be
asleep but it’s no use. “Uncle,” he calls and I
feel that identity wrenched out of my tired nerves.

I watch a feeble man in over-large clothes sliding his feet
                across the terrazzo floor of the concourse, each foot
                no more than four inches. The slip, slip on the brown

Sad always, always sad
At Passover, at picnics, at the zoo
Sad as you soaped me in the bath

Here are the snapshots from Horor Vacui

That’s me jumping off a cliff! 
That’s me throwing a lit match in a forest of drought! 

Ten years on the road: I move into the fast lane 
at the approach of a long rise 
to swing by a Ford tractor-trailer

   I’ve just been writing a letter in which I announced that I had finished a novel with or without pain and distress, that the considerable manuscript was lying in my drawer ready to go, with the title already in position and packing-paper at hand, or the work to be wrapped and sent in. Furthermore, I have purchased a new hat which for the present I shall wear only on 

The sisters are waiting
in the trophy room: Belinda
and Ducky, The morning

There are no cattle in Abilene.
I expected cattle.
I thought they trafficked in cattle in Abilene.