robots—angles right
And tolerances tight;
Barred, perfect as a trap
And for the flame to wrap.
The end in Genesis
Was different in this:
Incomprehension came
To halt the work, not maim.
The last time, possibly,
That language could rely
On making some effect,
If as an anti-act.
Our tongues so long confused
Must fail and be recused
In face of terror. Base
To summit, be its place
The Plain of Shinar, Main
Street, Wall, the Tower vain
If glorious is downed
By envy; goes to ground
With its automatons
Unschooled as to response.
Cities of the Plain and Fancy
Tarred with the brush, and soon to be
Inflicted with the tars themselves,
That is to say, brimstone, Gomorrah
Has the worst of both its worlds.
Too second-city, too remote
To christen, as it were, a vice,
Too metro-area, too close
And too “me too” to miss the fire,
The unpreferred metropolis,
An early Oakland, binds its wounds.
If guests, the Angels of the Lord
Or Lot’s leftovers, do not here
Apply for rooms at any inn,
Still, locals have their cakes and ale,
If not enough self-confidence
To say to any watchful host,
“Bring out the men unto us, that …
That we may introduce ourselves.”
None bargained here for one good man,
Though who can say we could have not
Provided ten, such is the lack
Of opportunity, and lag
In giving up the former Law.
No refugee will be detained
As a saline nostalgia, ties
Of blood not make for incest then.
Such reputation as we have
Is notoriety unearned,
Except as being back-up earns.
No dredge will search Dead Seas for us;
If chance uncovers us at all
It will not change our lesser rank.
Pompeii has the tourist trade,
Not Herculaneum. We speak
To you as Nagasaki might:
Eternally the second choice,
But heart no less on fire for that.
Not to Seize the Moment
A long-advancing change of color, eau de Nil
Overtly overriding green, the tide comes in.
As smooth as contact paper, in bright lack of wind
The East Bay matches glare for glare the Golden Gate,
Their brilliance darkening the islands spaced between.
A former prison one, and one an Ellis West,
They make the Bridge a Bridge of Sighs. Pacific Heights
Has palaces in place. It can be other hand.
So far from Venice and so near the ferry slips,
Art classes—watercolorists—make of the light
Such as they can. It may not come again. Tide does,
Or is not tide. That much can be predicted. Light—
Broad, brief—is prophesied in no ephemeris.
Already, as the sky’s kaleidoscope turns round,
And on the dampened paper, calculatedly,
The careful colors run, the even-lighted scene,
So whole, so uniform before, goes various.
The watercolor dries; the turning tide goes out.
To capture is to compromise. Set free the scene
And see its evanescence as an absolute.
Transpositions
Somewhere between the sexes and between the staves
The countertenor makes his thin falsetto waves,
As if the treble clef were warring on the bass,
Androgyny on gender. Music puts a face
Upon castration, as an actor lacking thrust
Might pad a codpiece. Character, but only just.
However, roles in the Baroque were not hard-line
Screen realism, and in
