New Poetry Summer 2007
Yes, of course, the king's mad.
It's mad to rule. My trouble's
this: I'm delusional!
For the ten-thousandth morning,
the glass pane above the bathroom sink
(always, the window over the ablution bowl)
shows a face I think
I own! The brain behind
announces the assumed name
(moniker like Stalin or FDR,
but more deeply familiar here)
while the presumed grey matter
steers the comb through the thicket
obscuring the dome. How am I
convinced once more, so easily, almost
completely (perhaps it's the eyes),
the gnome in the mirror
who guards this grove
of the mind (local tangle of roots
and branches) is any kind
of sovereign?
This knot
of wet vessels is a nexus
in a wilderness without edges, without
a namer to name. As I gather
pocket items, button my collar,
bound down the stairs and out the door,
inside (somewhere!) I surrender
to the forever of this singular madness,
self-sense, thrust of the form
of breath, of water, into the open
air, onto the road, the wheel
in the grip of these hands before me, fast,
forward in my magic throne!