Tricking Monsters

Eumaeus 597

In the service of shaving all those who do not shave themselves

the Samaritan proceeds

a stonesthrow is suggested

then abandoned because of the inevitability of

the answers

they hail down hours

and hit the faces of yawning

the purposeless and drunk

a whistle is emitted by a whistler

as we lurch from quandary to quandary

we are hardly conditioned to accept this symptomless fashion

this occurrence of wandering minerals

as we set by holding inches

and conveying to the forgotten professional dreamers

all the suitable ways they may express desire.

Eumaeus 598

En route to my habit

I smell the peculiarity of my age

gained in light

inhaled in the nature of death

a practice no longer permissible

as we scrape our public palates

and while away these gruesome days.

Waiting for the visitation

where the loaves and fishes are divided

in the ultimate street

where sober anger swells to a high C

and the young are all buttons and mischance

we possess the miracles of chance

but do not trust their odor,

the smell of unconscious bliss

that doubts the moment

instead return to that enticing traffic

and live in the gaps of nighttown.

Eumaeus 599

here. the shed of that bargain basement swineherd

that drunken character

the shepherd of dawn

his finished brothers descended from

goddess and the old laws.

here. time is frittered and believers

go about making up their circumstances

while truth falls to reason

and many good examples are given

here. The keeper of heaps

remains aside a brazier-light

the corporation has left him darker

and glaring like some silly Judas

like some kindred bridge back

to cobblestone and gloom

here. the obvious evidence is left

and the blood-making begins.