corners are aping their chains,

slashing down free-for-all stop signs

testing the patience of those remaining

confused planners,

translators of unnatural pronouncements,

firemen becoming arsons of glory

extinguishing their own blazes,

abandoned cartwheel designers

repainting these brokebrick city walls with eclipse butterflies

(and a law gets passed in Missouri

sending butterflies to jail for fornication)

seems our world remains veiled in its cocoon,

frantically peering out onto the frozen parade

forming in a used car lot outside,

slowly becoming a routine night game,

populated by nail biters,

boycotted by ranchers

farmers,

Saint Louis poets

somewhere your book falls to the floor.

it is scribbled with signatures of dedication and false mildew.

the book has been written by the reader,

who passed on shortly after the first chapter had been paraphrased

into a discourse,

then morphed into a photostat sandwich

later consumed by its creator,

a Pruitt Igoe farmer

turned cook!

yes John,

out here

no landscape dare apply to the setting.

no dialogue dare offer breathing space for the untold characters.

chapters of your mad life

will self-destruct in seconds,

their only way of proving your genius

distinguishable

from the rest

of the drub

Saint Louis

5/74