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On scared knees among the drab beams
Of First World War erection, scarred by teams
Of people pointing out that evil dreams
Come unto men and need to be expunged.
On quill knees, my puzzled overt joys
Which guided me are lost in corduroys
And girded with the shield that God loves boys.
I face the Father, at whom I'd've gladly lunged.
—Forgive me? No, not yet; it's only "bless
Me, Father, for I have sinned." Redress
My faults before this Deus thinks me less
Than slime, a worm, a preoccupied
Porcupine who was never shown the means
To succeed, who learned by books and beans
About people, and all the tough scenes
They pull, as they carefully deride
Your looks, your clothes, and halt with envy
As your time is up and it's time to send the
Mind asleep; let them call you empty
Headed, all is quite ignorable.
Were all my sins displayed, I would caress them,
Each one still sweet and quite adorable:
(Pronouns rise, no antecedents, rootless
Plants afloat above the forest, swingdangling
Vulnerable as testicles, bless them.)
My lashes catch in my brows now: wrangling
Their destinies together and tugging their bootless
Fracas on my face. Somnambulist,
I unsheathe my mirror, and gulp: a
Quick look sums up who's living there.
I'm faced with an odd lightframed floating square
Of my eye: old, toad-popped cariacaturist
Caught in the act of unseemly surprise;
Felix culpa! Felix maxima culpa!
Sculpting perfectly my own demise.
7.21.97
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