Mall
The gesture of offering a single perfect rose
is, sideways, an old sign for "OK"
and Buddhist nothingness. (Anyway,
it's possible to be too curt or creaky
to make it.) There's also holding out
a wide, precious bowl -
the bowl invisible, one seems to be
proposing or hoping for a hug.
Or in Sales, with nothing to hide.
You can raise a mirror and turn aside
like an old-world butler. You can
pound on a desk, or act weird.
The postures of poetry:
no sooner identified than
invalid. Xenobiologists say
that creatures are probably intelligent
if, when you point at something, they look
at *it. Over time, however,
species become too clever
for their own good, and gaze again at the finger.
For my part, I renounce
whatever distinguishes
us from our sometime reader roaming the mall,
agog, impassive, ogling the displays
with their mounds of ashes.
Norwegian Wood
Almost I understand
this environment
burnt reds drowned purples wool
versus stucco white versus ecru
nothing
egregious even the grain
of pale wood or flowers or
function
no decoration or music
rain on leaves the only view
golds
The Scandinavian Modern of my youth?
Kojčve's Sixties vision
of a postindustrial world without
poor competition
as haikus and flower-arranging which
so terrified the rich
they preferred structural recession?
Or a secular judgment
on any *other
mood that might enter
raising its tattered banner
its own punishment
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