I registered to lose by default and I was glad to do it
Not every wry-necked lamb is a victim of indisposition
Or even so some grow up to be Richard III
The terrifying spectacles the demonstrations of inanity
I was fascinated by their shards their topology
Their modularity
You had me at spectacles I’ve always been a railroad buff
Willfully oblivious to the cost of ballast
Some people devote their lives to abstraction
Renouncing the vital importance of fish and bicycles
Others derive contentment by weeping into their corn flakes
I do not fear vacancy lacking as I do a frame of reference
Every book has its gutter
Every rhapsody its diaphragm
Why await the second coming of ecstasy-without-horror
They don’t build motorcycles in Denver
Nor First Communion outfits in Nantucket
It was autumn early November
The driblets hung upon the eaves
Everywhere was felt the ambience of mingled expectancy and regret
The flocks of blackbirds dwindled
A voice sang strange modal plaints high-pitched but not shrill
The tertiary economy seemed so wan that day
So estranged from the hard facts of groceries and overcoats
I too fell into the lull lubricious equivocal static and covert
When it gets like this I always resort to the middle way
As the inner ear defines equilibrium
I’m not proud but old habits are hard to break
The categories of the understanding are not optional
And foveal concentration is corralled in vitro
I resolved to have my wiper blades checked
To refer to the specifications in the preface
But why assume that there’s a story
And I did in fact manage to see to it that the deterrents were expunged
But such is the fate of policies of incentive and disincentive
One casts a wary eye until the familiar Nemesis intervenes
I said You had me
Where have they flown the thief exclaimed
A little late it turned out
Where do good platelets go when they die
If you lived here you’d be home now
I have more memories