Stupid Dumb

Nothing is worth the effort save genius and decency.
Our mayor was decent, burning a list of numbers

that still keep coming; and married with genius
the king's speeches will endlessly dance.
Some days I'm the first and finest poet in all of mankind:
and then it becomes no thing

beneath a sign flashing Vacancy, nothing, Vacancy, nothing
staggering at the sink; frozen on the sofa
as smoke swirls from a dragon's nostrils
which (in principle) is safe from the judge's arbiter:
but then what remains, mayoral confinement
a little bit -- at all times -- the jungle in tow.

Give me none but what the day brings forth
else I'm unloading a warehouse and breaking down the boxes.


2011