Whistle like a bird, with your syrinx.
Your larynx is mammalian, fit for jazz
and yodeling and tissue-paper-and-comb

I circumambulated the colatitude
of Dichtungswissenschaftlichkeit,

Dawn descends like a dominant seventh,
muzzy and mean as a muskmelon's mother.
The light lours with a lecherous leer,
groping and glaring.

Workshops and writing groups present the same problem. [I'm] a glutton for prompts and exercises, but rarely do anything with them these days. If I had to do an assigned one, I'd probably be unhappy. A Quaker quote (on speaking in Meeting): "If nothing flames, silence is my portion." I guess that's very close to sounding like I insist on waiting for inspiration—sometimes one must just dig in and write something. Still. Quaker silence is a wonderful thing—waiting to see what, if anything, wants to be said.

This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level——
Just straightforward words without boustrophedon, picot edging, or bevel.
Look at it talking to you. You look out a window
and see yourself mirrored as a hippopotamus, a slender gazelle, or a thin doe,

1 The bootstrap of the genie of Jesus Christ, the song of David, the sop of Abraham.

Lo! An op-art Venus
with rhinoceros teeth
sits on the railroad tracks
in plaid lederhosen
selling indulgences.

Pacific 231, symphonic movement—Artur Honneger
You'd never know this concert was a black-tie affair
when you hear the violins going "Meow"
and the horns subjecting your auric-
ular senses to la peine dure et
forte, bombarding your ears point-blank.

Be ready to absquatulate
if that should prove the wisest course.
Meanwhile, shout until you're hoarse,
declaim, cajole, confabulate,
pontificate, prevaricate,
but never, never show remorse.

Mao,
The Pathet Lao
rightly throw in the hoosegow