The mirth of tragedy

Sunday goes the parade of the real
out the bookshop window
a canoe on a Subaru
shufflers with walkers, speaking
unintelligible Portuguese
To say nothing of the boys & girls on bicycles
who say nothing anyway

         The imagination is on the wane
         as quick as radio it goes trepanning
         studied medicine though reticent
         & was gassed
         Survived in the Alps of Italy
         through cannibalism of bare facticity

& taxes, 5% on the rare side.
Telephone call from the US EMBASSY
we're open til 5
and a streetcar wrapped in advertising
loves everyone alive

just like our prime minister

& a large car parks under a small tree

to go for a walk barefoot in a wheelchair
   a reckless, obvious irony
(at least he's moving)
   with the speed of "metaphysical
  stuff "  not "new age crap"
perhaps "food things?"

"the furious, vindictive hatred of life implicit"

in dream and certain realms of intoxication
    blasts the stereo of the soccer fan
the ball at moments kicked through the veil of Maya
   or appears to be

Fat chance the veil blows in the rain
     is the rain & the players
happy as ducks
     neither dream, ectstatic, nor hunger artists
   they kick the ball around & sometimes get hurt or wet or fake it

    The keeper has the stance of the skeptic
or a man who simply loves using his hands

  But what will furnish the metaphysical solace
if no one scores? if no one's keeping score? if no one knows who scores?

the mass of a ball, crowd, or fist

with greasy good luck and an old hat
       the man from the embassy arrives
"You speak the language very well!"
projecting a certain lyricism onto the heavy metal
desk

the spy
had tapped into what we might call the contemporary unconscious
contempt
that serves for banter

barters principium indivituationis for common courtesy
buys no books
but I had turned off the loungey opera
that had broken the ice with dionysus

      Later I got the score but the game stayed hidden
      I was not up to date, had no permission
       At six years old was no longer modern
      (Ivy grew up the network cable, mouse shit dangled in cobwebs from the mouthpiece of the phone)
      I had no right to protest, no audience, and would have seemed an alien
      And the play was something I could not even imagine

He had no such trouble. He printed out a bubble. He stepped into it
and floated away.
and then the airstrike. mythic provoquestion.
goons & the opposition absentees
keeping the skillet good & greasy

just like our prime minister, chief apollonian
(a smile connects two points on one face
the sun's and his own)

I locked up in the dust and went home
and the oversight committee broke for another long lunch.