Classic Poem

Turn it off. Let the ice cream sandwiches
for the rock concert tonight (inert
black obelisks, with enigmatic emblems,
that will speak loud later, when dark comes,
are being erected) melt. Who knew the invention
of ice cream, quiescent pleasure, would lead to this
from its first mass approval in the streets
of pre-motorized Paris? Turn it off
and move it. I want to identify again
with the primal power of river, cliff, and sky,
not as naive a hope as moronic theorists
and delivery drivers think. The economy of Russia
is melting once again, and bombs in innocent trucks
are on their way to park beside embassies
and blow up bas-relief eagles and masses
of air-conditioned clerks. Among whom well may be
the E.T.A. Hoffmann of this era, still
meditating his first story, having finally found
a steady job. I grew up where noise,
smoke, and sprawling blank
obstruction meant steady jobs and beauty meant
competitively cut lawns and kozy kuntry
kupboard decor and people, the common
people, would tell you so with mongrel snarls,
but only if, sick, you
brought it up. The raw fact
of nature is something to be imagined only,
like the moments of dismemberments in the moment
of explosion, but the Russian economy,
and the Häagen-Dazs truck, and the news stories
and TV pictures are not something to know.











From Poetry Magazine, Vol. 186, No. 1, April 2005. Used with permission.