to R.B.
the man I was back then would have
played with a
ball or a toy train
first and I would have remembered
then
the track and field the trees and when
the sun arose orange
breeze
and the white city and black
and red and blue and yellow
all about this parsimonious city
I rang all the alarms
the sea monster
it awoke by me bed
the Irish sea captain said
it mothered me all the Limeys down
by the quayside in the Blackpool line
as if whatever you said was true
it wasn’t the sad song you said you sang
or the all old ports o’ call you withered at
‘twas only this very nice you can call it that
Roncesvalles here my mind about wonders
ever my mind will
tally the shreading Wilberforce and crust
for a tenpenny nail
and along Seventh Street and Peachtree Street
and the Porte de something statuesque
prostitutes
and the man wanting to go there yelling about
something he’d lost
or had been taken from him
the really bad black night
the one that isn’t day
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