I wake to sounds of garbage collectors banging cans, making their rounds, wake to taxi horns. I wake to a dragon slain by Cadmus. Must I wake -- ? Must I stand tall? To be both real and drawn -- that is reason to stay, to endure the noise. The window of this small room. Poised in the room, I look out. I see the rows and rows of wheat, I see the pale green death-figure whacking wheat left and left. I see the death's-head moth, floating around the booming birth of Bacchus. Noise! Everything today is watermarked on Ingres paper. I leave my dungeon shirtless, shoeless, and wander -- by accident -- into Geronimo's cage at the first World's Fair, sit down with Geronimo -- endure the giggles, endure the spitballs, endure the peanuts, endure the pennies, the rotten apples. Standing behind us a grand old gorilla lifts his unruly eyebrows, wondering what in hell is he talking about. Am I talking? He strokes my clean high cheekbones, kisses my jawline. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GERANIUMS by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON RAIN by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON DRINKING ODE by ALCAEUS OF MYTILENE ON THE LOSS OF PROFESSOR FISHER by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD SPRING by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD THE WANDERER: 5. IN HOLLAND: FAILURE by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON ON A ROYAL VISIT TO THE VAULTS by GEORGE GORDON BYRON PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY: OF PROPRIETY by CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY |