We Are All Pretenders

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Oxen of the Sun 399

This humorless bath of primrose path
This thing I have taken
So is the birth of a bird to a monstrous
Surgeon patience.
I have spoken here of butterflies
Squirming of feigning
Women with tongues of choking
Philosophers who,
When discovering their immodest blood
Become bits of flesh and tinkling hearts
Become the word of departure
Become the retreat of modesty
And the signal to sally forth
With only beautiful providence for comfort
The eye knows its excuses.

World Without Memory

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Oxen of the Sun 396

A gentleman
After grace
A life of grade
A fulfilled intention
Of a delivered contention
Boiled in malice
Over coals of Newcastle
A simple matter
Of prolific rain
A simple matter
Of forest animata
A simple matter
Of expected purpose
A simple matter
Of pain overtaken
Of dutiful fashion
Of memory persuaded
Asking the water
A simple matter
Of erect quotation
And naming the flesh.

The Sky Is Indifferent To the Earth

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Oxen of the Sun 393

We are dressed to be cozeners
Meddling with the shit of the faithful
In feathers we dance, a remedy for whispering
Would we full and rear to show our
Sweet smoky religion
Our faith slapped and licked and put on display
For another to shed this word
Our wrists rubbed in gold and oil
Thanks comes to the emperor bare as his women
They turn down this road and bellowing
Make bargains with this daisychain world
But that I had only taught one more ravishing trick
I would not be playing with these dung-blessings
Nor the fodder of the world.

The Memory of Water, the Useless Bay

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Nausicaa 366

The palace of arms shines in the dark
A bullet, really, straight and full of harm
The wind knows the way we used to look
Before there were babies and beauty and the tongues of fools.

You must know
How the rocks lose their false color
On arriving from the sea
Your hand holds out the washed earth
And pleases its blind name
Rocket watching you notice and give thanks
To the sad years
I will tell you stories
Of the rolling heel
And the drunken wonder
I will come to find you shining
In the dark.