The subject is the rain.

A fat poet reads,
Playing with the hair in his belly button.

The subject is the rain.

Who among us would follow him down that road?

Think of the mud and
Humiliation.

Think of the agreement in his smile to which none of us could ever be faithful,
Drying off.

It copied an older form--one to which we do adhere, actually.


And these rainy plums are black and sugary.

Narcissus.

Our

Welfare has armied numbers going on.

So quarrels dip boot-high, and fill with smoke, 

and, too, fill with wandering.

But
Civility is cleaner and has reason on its side--
And the grave greens and the algae blues pollute
It. Look at this fleshing ebb, here,

Where the Allegheny slurps under a bridge.

The swimmers
Go unnoticed, returning almost,

The fun progressing in their heads.

Dreaming of home.

Occasionally, you get someone like Glenn Gould--
A human.

But here we are, where memory is stronger
Than art.

Morning observation.

Dawn passes through the heavy curtain;

People are happier than they seem.

Swimming haiku.

The balm of the Moon's
White eye on swimmers below--

They work tomorrow.