BUILDING SEVEN:

M. Gorbachev and Social Death at Seven

I live in an era in which people take photographs of puddles. Do you realize how sensitive and profound is my era? And what have I done for it? How, Muse of Dialectical Abruptions, have I come to not catalogue it?

Depressed llamas court all over the plain.

You and I shop for jeans, while

Mila, our bronzed compatriot,

Traces the footsteps

Of some ancien régime,

Crosshatching thrones

And prefabbing pedigrees

With incredible speed.

      Fling your heart into the flame,

      Where Morality marries Death

      And jousting lads lament

      That no father watches them

      Fight, kill, maim, imperil,

      Dodge lance and vault

      Into the maw of fable,

      Until a green lady arrives

      With pelagic grace,

      Overcoming waves

      And all saints.

Philip Larkin and Frantz Fanon met inside a motorcade. Shared books. Cigarettes.

It was presidential.

Or one of those waiting-to-enter-Rome Fellini, tyrant of Rimini, things.

Big hernia. Media-speckled. Schizo-inferno. Interfaith.

I remember the place.

All around, it snowd another year.

And then...