----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 11:19 AM
Subject: Re: Snap/Ken: "Planning My Viking Funeral"
> Definitely a plan, Ken, definitely a plan. 'Mr Sardonicus; he dead.'
>
> Doug
I beg your pardon. It is *I*, not Ken Wolman, who am the Sardonicus. Ken's
too nice.
Diotima
Regrettably she has no sponsor
in our world, and when she applies
for a visa, it's denied -
bureaucratic fingers
balk at "Purpose of Visit."
(How thick the walls of our embassy,
its windows narrow, blank, and barred.)
Then Diotima shrugs,
turns. Beret, trenchcoat,
perfume again pass
our guard (it is her imperturbability
he loathes), re-cross the boulevard,
reclaim her table on that street of tables.
There, unbothered -
nobody tries to *pick up* Wisdom
though all desire her - she takes out
her notebook, reflects.
With Plato she was an enabler.
For Hölderlin, a joy just out of reach.
What might she have whispered
to me, if Immigration had let her through?
She fills a page, removes and crumples it.
At the edges of the street,
fast-food joints have begun to replace
the cafés, but for the moment
it's four o'clock; trumpets sound from the castle;
a carriage brings a smiling and waving archduke.
Office Coffee
It's my first daily duty. And I try -
scoured pot, rich blend, careful measure -
but it always comes out sludge; I don't know why.
Perhaps they want to drink that and blame me.
I push the cart along corridors
into cubicles. It's like a walker
providing welcome support for my halting shuffle,
unless I lean too much and it tips over.
Someone says, "Go faster."
I would say, "I will,
but thou shalt wait till I return," if I thought
there was a chance in hell they knew the quote.
Black, no sugar,
cream, two Splendas -
cold by the time I get them where
they're wanted; and the crullers unattractive,
except to the forever dieting
women who turn from screens to stare
at them, then berate me for offering.
Screens where so many numbers, words,
and things like movies and cartoons go by
too fast for thought, and which
I'm summoned (by guys, mostly) to admire -
"What do you think of that, old-timer?"
I mumble something caustic about time.
Then hobble to my chair
in the xerox room, and wait
to be alerted by flashing lights
to those few simple problems I repair .
(Few know the big old copier is still there.)
In the afternoons,
in one or another window office,
the issue of my redundancy
is floated, with hasty gentility
or contempt. Towards either,
I show as soon as I can as much terror
as I can: it's what I'm paid for.
Those youthful silhouettes haloed in glare
will never let me
collect my pension of crumbs and grounds,
play cards with rats in the sub-basement,
or from the highest cobwebs in the shaft
gaze down indifferently on elevators.
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