spiel

these lines amongst some other lines
prefigure about or
see those lines
in the way beside these lines as if these beside those lines
could have spoken up about this that or the other thing

in the most spectacular thing
that other day when believed thing most correct
blossomed fairly most correctly wished for thing at the day were most obviously devout
    at the day
were not wish and will
most capaciously yoked at the bit of the tongue
and the mighty forward thing lunged forward a bit
and awakened loosed untrammeled a bit of the thing
looking forward at the most bit and fretted lovelorn multitudes at the end of the day as
    they say in politics

and the revenues came in and things were lost and deployed itself a French word
    helter-skelter and the main thing were deployed in a matter of will and whim and they were thing and matter and will and whim
and they were discovered after all adrift and tamped down in the main aforewards and
    most better things were withdrawn and
it’s more pronouncements from the pulpits
descrying storm clouds and the more vice-regent sort of thing appalls this playing way
    of being there most forwards and backwards

and the report came in and backwards went in and backwards came off
it went off and that was the name of the game
nothing obliviously as it were transferred and thought of nothing
given up and by-blathered into nonexistence like whiskered and lathered New St. Pete’s
a new discourse in the new ears and whiskered likewise dripping with the wax of tapers
    stuck in there
a solemn processional to the auto da fe

and it proceeded gracious to the ends of the earth
not wanted for a carapace
at the end of days
hardly wanted at all
a feather in your ear
you couldn’t captious write the speech
it gives utterance utterance
to the unspeakable treasuries
of most thought
most bethought
what the eyes have seen

the gradual cessation of all thought
that must be spectacled in the roundhouse
where they turn the engines round about still steaming
like a tea kettle and a fissure in the earth
making women mad

the hours pass there isn’t any recourse it hasn’t happened before
how do you write it
the continent effaced
for a small reason
it here is they small for a new reason dickered and wanted reasoned and
    cantankerously wished
for a new reason and that is were will why and reason sufficient
that were why and that sufficient were

and if I step out of line literary criticism is there to buck me out of step
in time of lashings of meat on the platter here you are me Hardy Boy trot me out to the
    harrocks and get me a switch to my hands for a charm against the seasons
lash it down the Sirens
singing as if there it was the Cycladean idylls of the Argive weeping at the outlands of
    the fleet
these were the bugbears of civilization in these times as you would know
the scuttle-buses shifting about from pillar to post to the woods and about the river
    where the palms are playing
gracefully and full of love the way French poets are fond of saying
where the boys are grieving upon the day that last was seen shining
as it were outwardly but dimly within dimly
as if the lights were out in the place and something shone upon them not so much
    glaringly but as it were

and that is the end of the day there is no more in their eyes
not even Plato has a word for this
oh maybe why not add to the miseries of the young

what if it were a blanket dispensation as much as to say
what if it were today not patiently but discursive blasts the dismal shoots and accords
    for the very reason it gives
a sort of witness and reproach to the course of things
sack and pillage and paint the place pull it down cast it off
put up anything but

who are these who wear the city in parentheses
like so much in the way of balls?

an adage put forth in opportune times