II

II.
Step backwards and lose your footing,

Clawing

at loose and looser grips;

Daddy’s long legs crucified

(clinging to what vitality is left)

your face not mortified, but perplexed -

Still alive.

Peeled lids and tardy pupils -

A spastic ceremony with bastard dancers -

You find yourself scrambling in the romance of middle time.

A bomb killed and filled everything but time -

still the wasp is humming the lines of Chaucer and Dante,

though burnt ears blur rhyme -

The music of cat paws pounce ‘pon your mind

like negro fingers fingering a dead piano in the lobby of a hotel

notes heavensent suspended hung,

lingering and up strung.

Blind, you step backwards and lose your footing,

yawning and yawning and yawning.

D.B.B