from Dreaming at Noon: The Tower; The Home; Account

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The Tower


To defy the gods
I commissioned a
Tower to be built,
Which would be
Terrific enough
To penetrate the sky itself,
It was assuredly
The greatest ever built.
But, like myself,
Owing to its bulk,
The tower would,
In time, sink back
Into the earth, the
Mud, its rightful origin:
While it is no longer
Known to human
Kind, since nobody uses
Or admires it now, my
Tower, in spite of all, is
The deepest ever built.



The Home


In my time I have known
Great painters great poets

Great philosophers and
Great pornographers,

And still I have not known
A great architect.

Introduce him to me,
And I am bound to inform him

Of a huge sadness . .
Let him make a house for it.



Account


I have ninety persons in my employ.
I have sixty-two fools and thirty-five maple trees,
I have twenty-four dogs and forty-three goats.
I have sixty-two wives,
Three tropical birds, four sons, four thousand concubines,
Two hundred beautiful daughters
And a human man who just sits here without saying a word
In my palace courtyard.
I think that he contrives to undercut my very livelihood
And reap all the benefits.
He is excellent company all the same.
Sometimes I think I would murder for this person.
Other times I think I would lay down my life for him.
He is my soul’s shadow.
He is that which gives firmness
To my vaguest contours if I stroll in perfect darkness.
He is the one human unafraid
To defy my severest logic
When I am near to sleep at night.
He pollutes my thought-flickers.
He violates the drinking water with his mellow chanting.







. . .