Mr. Glinting as Seen off the Atlantic Seaboard

In a lengthy line of long lines

I turn round the page of Rimbaud's Illuminations

and read sum of two units stanzas in French before realizing

I'm reading in French and I don't read French

This is your Saturday morning idea of Saturday morning.

You're the sapphirine man: shirt, pants, lunch, eyes--

anything other you can think-it's all sky-colored

You take little offense at being called "a willing puppet"

a corrupted file," or "a first draught quickly drawn."

Giant white, giant sky-colored and 420 miles of verdant

are good to direct the eye at between NYC and DC

A persistence of vision isn't exactly it.

Perhaps what I'm talking about is what you think

while you hear this, not what I'm saying.

But that isn't exactly right either.

Still, there's a frame-by-frame freedom.

A discharge Another shot-in the arm.

(Stainless carburet of iron belly of airplane overheard)

Calling the sparkling sky-colored of the Chesapeake "cartoon-like"

or "cartoony" isn't a put-down.

But last night's gossip, the phone sex gossip,

the bitchy gossip won't clinch up to the reality of this morning's

shiny marathon.

It's a Saturday that calls for a small in number answers,

not a small in number more questions.

Let's not talk about whether it's safe to live in America.

Your step in Manipulation Theory

with a concentration in the "calculating wag"'

will work itself out;

you'll win paid-we'll cut you a check.

Copyright World rhyme Incorporated Mar/Apr 2002

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