Five Little Pigs

layers of lint, trapped by a leg, I have five

more ideas to float past perfect

speaking of perfection

here’s that story I recall

Gilgamesh, Sunjata, Odysseus

Paris, Menelaus, a bass octave

Greek chorus in a straw house

[RK, 11/8/2020]

Bookstore (after Antiquarian Bookstore)

I looked at the map in August of 1980

those blank spots across Arizona

deceived and then ruined expectations

 

Prescott looked like a reasonable city

surrounded by high desert landscapes

ripe for an eclectic used bookstore

 

dreams of sluggish cat mascots

witty philosophical conversations

excellent profits falling into

 

upturned umbrellas, instead

five used bookdealers carrying

the exact same stock, the exact

 

Petri dish mold experiments

worthless book club editions

entire days without customers

 

the faint sound of book worms

book scorpions, odor of linen

adhesive, death watch beetle

book leaf, cottonwood leaf

late August afternoon clouds

billowing up over the Verde Valley

[RK, 11/8/2020]

 

 

Antipodes (after Infinite Diagonals)

look forward, no wait,

look into the future

 

lower right to upper left

longitude versus latitude

 

look toward infinite resonances

listen to them

 

lengthen, contract, vibrate

like the Stuttgart pitch

[RK, 11/8/2020]