I make this line
my beast
of claw of tooth

Who killed Cock Robin?
Where is the boy who looks after the sheep?
What’s in the cupboard?

He disappeared, often, even as he was speaking,
though he could finish those sentences
from which he had disengaged himself,

"Death is also the thief of beauty," he says,
as a slow disquietude replaces morning's calm.
The pink light fades from ashen clouds,

It has a bronze covering inlaid with silver,
originally gilt;
the sides are decorated with openwork zoomorphic

Gray flagstone steps, mean staggered discard graves
on which engravers botched a line or date,
or split the granite's flaw; a stream-cut groove's

Impatient at the ferry slip, he hoped
He'd long be out of Beaufort when they heard
The fool he'd been, the fools he'd made of them,

Sympathy, to begin with, is a problem.
The hotels are okay and there's free soap
to smuggle home. Lunches are not lavish

Like I get this phone call from Shirley MacLaine,
it's the middle of the night, right,
she's all confused about time,

To all those driven berserk or humanized by love
this is offered, for I need help
deciphering my dream.