I’m Pretty Don’t Like Anything; Or, the Importance of being Urgent

Few things seem urgent now.

The diaphanous verse
of the crippled Leopardi.

The fight for clarity
of style, if not purpose.

The dead season,
and the one alive,
and the sound of it.

Few things seem worth
talking over any longer.

When you fear even
the moon’s laughter.
When your feet dance
so hard in anger.

Few things seem urgent
any longer.

Dostoevsky’s self-diagnosis
from a siberian prison:
scrofula, epilepsy, rheumatism,
the pompous ambition
to love the whole world.

Tomorrow’s memory of your last
first kiss.

The perfect verse
of the crippled Leopardi.

Lost in a rambling
undirected wind.

The dead season,
and the one alive,
and the sound of it.

*for Sarah