"We were invited along with 170 others--writers etc--to the Kennedy inaugural. ...I wrote in the Kennedy guest-book, Robert lowell, happy that at long last the Goths have left the Whitehouse. Bobby Kennedy read it, and said, 'I guess we are the Visigoths,' " --Lowell, op cit

"Unreliable Car"

1.
to live without nourishment
in a world that makes no sense
the morning being dismantled
ashes dumped on a bed of sawdust
gray endures

and the final blur

2.
colder in the shadows

gotta keep watching
for when the lane dwindles
the ache in my throat
grows
why is there something
rather than nothing
i solved that one

the bridge
blazing with daylight
a harmonica
played with some no little asperity
the chrome apples
of the Bad Hesperides
why are there potholes
rather than roadway
i think i know that one
being vice president
of Boarded-Up Longtime
spray thrown up
from the car ahead glitters
like diamonds for half a second
we glitter
like diamonds for half a second
come talk to me
in the shadow of the huge giraffe sculpture

"A few years ago this would not have been such an interesting place. But now, most world leaders know the planet is in trouble."


The poetry of self promotion.


We actually got this one in.