Mr. Creeley’s Pigmy Pouter (for Kevin Killian)

It’s dry, so I depart
to the wetter virtues
of my nature,
to the floating iceberg
where champion pigeons
are poured from eggs,
for only a moment—
a true measure of time,
immeasurable.
I climb everywhere
and climb, and climb,
and climb; leaving my
lungs on some
San Francisco hill.
Then, coffee and MOMA,
where the hydraulics
in my testes function
in conjunction
with crossing the catwalk…
Dear Sir,

I am writing to inform you of the potentially epizootic situation that exists
in the Richard Tuttle exhibit. There is a large rusted nail that protrudes
dangerously out from the work entitled, “Beethoven Stop on the Way to Egypt.”
I am concerned that should a patron become momentarily disoriented,
or misguided by an angry docent, they could easily become impaled
upon the nail, creating a religious object of which one would then regrettably
have to leave word of explanation on Mr. Tuttle’s answering machine.

Thankfully, I was navigated ably out of harm’s way by my tour guide, Dolores,
thereby avoiding entirely any such religious experience, and removed
to the safety of the museum book store.

This is exactly where
the pigeons come in—
right at that very moment
when nothing else
matters except the blue ribbon,
and tomorrow she’s done;
all the recessive traits
in the world won’t save us,
and won’t matter by Monday.
But when the moment
is right now, and they are
in that moment, it is poetry.
Like the lusty young bierfrau
with blonde braids,
a chronic smile,
trussed in a woman’s body,
in a city that I am leaving
in an hour.
Can anything be purer
than the subordinance of poetry,
when the echo still calls,
the hydraulics kick in,
when the Bavarian
voluptuously pours?
No matter really—
the trick is keeping stock,
and taking stock,
so the next grand champion
has a place and a time,
and preferably a moment
to remember him by.