McSORLEY’S OLD HOUSE: 1856

this local landscape – like a hawk –
                                     in gray gloom; a diary of words
composed by the alphabet of language; the rest:
                          making coffee – jotting down expenses
contemplating the hills – and fish-fliers,
        who, with the needle of time, stitch together days –
the constant desire to be silent – to lie at the bottom
                                                 like the fish of death –
and you feel your former smoking habit unbearably,
                                                      buying some goods

you look for a pack of Gitanes in the store for their pungent
                                         smoke – stroking the cigarettes
and talking to them as if to poems –
   denizens of the bottom – blowing away specks of tobacco –
clinging in rows on your palm – those captive women
                                          you shut away in the harem –
of a crumpled pack in your pocket – betrayed today
                                         by you – no one will take these
stripteasers from you – these concubines –
                                these buyable girls – baroque nudes

you offer bread and wine to latecomer strangers –
                        you don’t need conversation for any reason
to consummate – again gossip and slander –
                                            that – at last – like daily bread
grain at the speed of sound – your earthly existence
will continue as the fish of death –
                         and light at some point will pierce through
the soft fabric of your heart – it will cut out a paper chain
                                                                     and the fact

that you scribble words by habit – you will name poems –
                                                   the ship by which homer
assembled the odyssey – and looking into the window
                                                          waiting on the ships  
several sturdy irishmen – chortling in drunken banter –
                                                               low off the foam
and the very air that dangles like grapes –
                          with the sawdust of fresh boards – they add
a good smell – giving back yellowed rivers of beer – to the earth

McSORLEY\'S OLD HOUSE: 1856