revisions from Trieste

7th October 2010

I am a lucid lucy
a listless chill in the gloaming
with a thickening of birds

I am the slap of the line
the buzzing of mopheads
I am that short espresso
the shaking of tails
the yoke yellow walls
spread out the window

I am a cough a sniffle
an old man’s head
a young woman’s eyes

I am the hairy tale of the past
waving or tucking between
the legs sometimes
a lick of the snout or a low grumble
from the belly

I was baited into a new tango
I was a temporary gathering
I was beast of another butter

it is the end of the month and this is not far from Venice not far from the thick eyes of Joyce with his twelve lectures on Shakespeare the Self Taught Man has a nosebleed
and alienation imagines a man with the tongue of a caterpillar

we can’t rip it out we can’t be ourselves alone
this is not a landscape
this is not the beast of a heart
the dark flame of old Europe

these are not moving pictures

we have left nothing
poets painters musicians
nothing stays still
in the churches of Rome
or Naples
with the misheard angels
we are getting back the ghost