On Reading a Vast Anthology

Love, death, sleeping

with somebody else's husband

or wife-this

is what poetry is

about-Eskimo, Aztec,

or even Italian

Rinascimento,

or even the high falutin Greeks

or noble Roman-O's.



O the constant turmoil

of the human species-

beds, graves, Spring with its

familiar rosebuds, the wrong beds,

the wrong graves, wars

unremembered & boundaries gained

only to be lost & lost

again

& lost roses whose lost

petals

reminded poets to carpe, carpe

diem with whoever's wife

or husband happened to

be handiest!



O Turmoil & Confusion-

you are my Muses!

O longing for a world

without death, without beds

divided by walls between houses!

All the beds float out to sea!

All the dying lovers wave

to the other dying lovers!

One of them writes on his mistress's skin as he floats.



He is the poet.

Not for this

will his life be spared.