If they pay well I tell them “Bene stat
Stop in again the next time you feel horny
In this whorehouse where we hold our state.”

After the first 24 hours
the road begins to
disappear.

And no, I won’t be coming home this year,
although I am bereft to hear your peacock died.

A vast crowd, so many, rushed to the riverbank:
Women and men, famous greathearted heroes, 
The life in their hero bodies now defunct, 

Dawn at that hour
Brought on her kindly light for ill mankind,
Arousing men to labor and distress.

While the soul is our creation, anyway I take care of mine,

Among many leaves I step on a letter
That begins I love you dearly.

A soft, motiveless conversation that might never end
In a country of size, so beautiful days did not finger each ear.
Near one end grackles, the birds in armor,

Where are my robes, my sword, the minted coins
inscribed Pros Doxan…? I ascend my throne.
When the Bishop, bearing unction, comes

The sea’s tedious soliloquies
drone and repeat
against the rinky-dink dock