(in memoriam Kingsley Amis, 1922-1995)
Six nights the seduction of,
two years the disaffection,
ten more in the burial of
and then, decomposition.
Take pride in such irrelevance,
the passing thought that scratches,
from groveling to arrogance,
flies the donkey’s tail catches.
Fables, morals, more than merely
a labored trope for X or Y:
the poet shall be thrashed severely
for impotence of stroke and sigh.
The click of jointed seashells,
the blue of the greenhouse bulb,
the cyanotic vein-throb spells
a casually opened robe.
Pick the image deep and mean,
matching white with white,
milk the phrases slow and clean
till words run thin and light.
Admire the failure to find
what was there and now is not,
the tics by which we remind
ourselves of the joys we forgot.