Is there actually any man, or anything in a man, that is not bewildered?
Zhuangzi 2:10 (Brooke Ziporyn tr.)
a book lies open on his lap
words curl and rise from the page
a library of blank books
like deconsecrated churches
patrolled by a few diehard flies
from the butchers of his youth
he hears two trains
trading blasts on their horns
hoppers of sand versus tankers of tar
neither one going his way
the light in the corridor delivers a sunset
to the inside of shuttered eyelids
mother and father always said
they’d stolen him back
from the gypsies as
we called them then he thinks
well maybe they lied
maybe i’m still out there wandering
how much less likely
is this burgled language
this lovers’ quarrel
with the angel of death
which side are you on
which cosmic joke punches up