the least an American poet can do
at this juncture
is flirt with ultimate
disaster
if we speak now with the care and precision
that has been our care
we'll find our voice
indistinguishable
from the plague of sound
that swarms through everything
by now the distinctions
we would make between ourselves
and the national psychopathology
are irrelevant
in this mortal time our voice
is no more our own
than our clothes, cars
and computers
even our deepest secrets
and our greatest loves
and our worst regrets
are laughable
we can only cry out
so that even the dying king
will hear our caterwauling
(should he happen to be dying)
no time to make it slick or edgy
or even funny
forget literary
nor can it be charged
with irony
that privilege is extinct
even though, and note this, detachment
is absolutely paramount
the work will be, as it can only be
grotesque, embarrassing
obvious
plain and sick
but it will be hot
i mean dangerously hot
like Absolon's coulter
between the time he took it from the forge
of Gervase
and when
with all his hate
unraveling
he plunged it
into the ass of Nicholas
