Poem after reading some James Merrill
I am totally unsatisfied with the ending. This was based on a dream and I haven’t quite figured out the significance of the building except I know now it has something to do with death, foreboding, searches, pairs, and coupling.
Alcove of pine, a library sheepishly husky,
bicycles acluster to iron alloy racks
leaning left and right.
We’ve a winding path made
tending driftly down,
the group of us.
It’s this darn summer. We have caps on
and beverages addréss in undone sloppy ice.
A man in purple tee, combed hair, khaki cargoes–
motions the door with a twitch but
none of us enters.
We’ve tread down so much none wants
satyric edict (his) the Up.
Could this be the antipode
of long-sought treasure hunts?
I know this place.
I’ve trimmed its edges.
This library: every livery thing has its place in this place:
thesauruses molecular and placental with nouns.
Not just the natural order:
rocks, trees, leaves, sand, dirt mud—
they’ve won their semblables.
But also
saxophone, air conditioning, Doppler radar technology, packing peanuts, Automated Teller Machine, Revlon mascara, printer cartidge.
In this peculiar wonder I’ve lastly found the synonym for titterers as lonely as crustacean!
Hello pill bug, hello prawn. Roly-poly, trilobute, squill. Spiny lobster, you scoundrel.
At last you’ve your mate.
I dreamt this library 10 years ago in the August of my August, it was camp and I was lonely
trying to make something more enjambed than a thesaurus.
