BOOK VI. SUBVERSE

POEM AS TV [For Marshall McLuhan]

I
watch
a man watching
a man on his
T.V. watching

You
watching
a man
on your
T.V.
watching

Him
watching
a man
on his
T.V.
watching

Me
watching
a man
on my
T.V.

RUMINANT

When I said “I’ve been around,”
You must have misheard me and
Thought I was in some kind of
Trouble, or else I would have
Been on my way, arriving
At words, and you probably
Would have been around longer.

X.COM

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PROBABLE ENCOUNTER WITH MUTANT LIFEFORM

If in midsleep you must wake
and feel the shape
beside you shifting,
do not run out for the knife.
It is just me, trying

on different disguises.

FRAGMENT: FUGITIVE

They are not
So much as
Clues as they

Are leads or
Else I would
Have known how

To get there
Myself and
You would have

Already
Found me since
It was I

Who planted
Them there the
Other day

Not for you
To track me
Down but for

Me in case
I do get
Lost that I

May turn back
And Trace my
Way ploughing

Down signposts

NOTE ACCOMPANYING VAN GOGH’S X’MAS PRESENT TO A PROSTITUTE IN ARLES

You once asked for my ear—

Here.

Do what you want with it,
However you see fit:

Hang

It

On your wall or feed it
to the dogs that you may

Hear

How

My heart heaves nights when they

Howl.

AFTER MIRO, DAREDEVIL TIGHTROPE WALKER

What does it matter
To Catalans if
I shit in my pants.
The old do it all

The time, and they do
Not even care which
Pants they shit on, much
Less the occasion

Or the time at which
The shitting takes place.
That, to my mind, is
To shit in bad taste.

If God can take shit
And breathe it into
Man, I shit in my
Pants because I can.

PENITENT

In pages where words are
Windows that smuggle the
Sun: I hope the muses

Come. That I may serve my
Sentence not in dread of
Every blank and empty