(For Wallace Stevens)
"Poetry is the supreme fiction, Madame…"
There I sat with Webster's Seventh,
straining to cipher Steven's verse.
Tumbling inside my holy palmer’s mind
to cast against the board a paradise
that no matter how I held my mouth
turned up sevens.
So I jiggled and I juggled
with a shake to the bank,
and rolled dem bones down the green felt plank –
boxcars, auw craps.
Broke, I took off my Halloween mask
and projected it into a turnstile.
Here's the real spin:
Friction is the supreme poetry, mademoiselle.
Let's take a dance for instance, (we'll say samba)
now step for step, fuzzy bellies rubbing in time,
who could coin a rhyme that's more sublime?
I mean, what elementary verse
conveys erotica more truly than this.
I say you have to expect your just reward
when you roll dem bones.
It's a pathetic fallacy to cuss the dice,
when you throw for sevens
and get snake eyes.
