William Byrd

        With the precision of one who fights, slowly, the shadow of the battering ram of absolute
	knowledge behind him, in a barrel-vaulted, hallowed space…
	 
        The gnomes’ contumely notwithstanding, it was a red-letter day, really for all concerned, and
	then the tide poured in.  It is fatal to forget this nugget of charm even as one flounders knee-deep
	in it, smashing at gulls, cries, the wind…
	 
        Art-deco priestesses summon from distinct alcoves brains made for discerning timekeeping
	ordeals.  The little pennants that flutter ominously from the rigging of ships cannot help but
	evoke a charred red entity, staircase landing for some.  Blue is the cobalt at which we point our
	belts, energetically, soulfully.
	 
        Art-deco priestesses summon from distinct alcoves brains made for discerning timekeeping
	ordeals.  The little pennants that flutter ominously from the rigging of ships cannot help but
	evoke a charred red entity, staircase landing for some.  Blue is the cobalt at which we point our
	belts, energetically, soulfully.
	 
        Tied in some neurosis competition, I was happy to see you as a little girl at your birthday party
	so many years ago, changed, and with a glove for each tear-starred hour of the day.  It was
	graceful then to be back-bending, to half-turn as the obsessed host comes into one’s line of
	vision, from a nameless spree, polite and indifferent, most indifferent to his politeness and that of
	others.  For we live in a three-channeled creekbed and there are no balloon-offenses leaving from
	here.
	 
        I thought you had drilled the dendrite of your extra keeping into my forehead by now, flesh the
	texture of a reed.
	 
        And you know, the skunk family approved it too, including old Grandpa skunk.  But which does
	not take us very far from wars and their canons.  The chipped, dried paint managed to signal
	enthusiasm.  There was beginning to be in the world like a low cloud of birds circling.  The
	higher you direct our gaze the less it sees the struggle at your feet, out of which a victor will
	emerge, and yes the orphans play with us often on the sand until one by one they get adopted. 
	Which is why the angles are all acute ones and it’s colder than the inside of a pocketbook.
	 
        Suddenly, shambling
	she comes up to me, a thing partly of architecture,
	of how it would like to be the basis for all partaking,
	communicating, and is in arrears because of some
	dumb thing over your head.  Oh well.  The misery of others
	is a sad thing to behold but one must contemplate as well the gathering
	that goes on, in bits, in pits, whatever is exposed at low tide.
	The brief diamond that you dangled…And then all want to come to see, tremendous
	crowds overwhelm the clock, which threatens to collapse under their weight, but
	they want to see, they get to see.  At first it’s like some
	phenomenon’s unbirthing, then a cold star, but always in alphabet among whose
	letters are interlaced much affection and dying.
	 
        Hold my stinger as a stranger and I will be presently.
	I haven’t filled out the forms.
	I can see heaths and coasts;
	in them we become magic and empty again.