May I, for the sake of argument,
imply that something is unusual
if not wrong with our present state?
Smoking by the window bears no fruit,
brings only the accustomed view of paper
birds scudding in the wind, grey skies
and blue ski tights scissoring away.
Tree, we do have our hands. There is fleeting
pleasure in the brewing of tea, groping for
a last cigarette. But have we only the transcient
produce of what we harvest by hands?
Already trinkets and do-dads, stolen
form our past, inanimate objects lavished
with undue affections, clutter our rooms,
annotating former, ancient follies,
And, already, squinting ahead with no perspective
we see little more than prolonged
accumulation of these amputated allusions
*
Originally inspired by the French poet Jules Laforgue (or so I imagined at the time, 1963), this was a first jejune dig at a vein which I still find intriguing. See my recent Paraphernalia.
Howard, my roomate during my first year at Beloit College, also aspired to be a writer. But he was honest enough to complain and to critique this poem on the grounds of his own frustration: “all I can get my characters to do is light another cigarette”.