[New-Poetry] What's the difference between a duck?

[TheOldMole]

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE INTERIOR PARAMOUR



"Disregard previous message" was the first communiqué

they sent us, followed by a fax

that came while we were out: "Don't expect

a full report. It's not your job to monitor her;

It's enough you trust she is being watched,

that we know who she is." The next we knew,



they had moved into the apartment above her.

"She loves her room," they wrote us.

"She gets board with it." Soon after,

they had drilled a peephole through her ceiling,

and we heard about fluffy pubic hair,

flame blonde, with the texture of Rubens.



Then, nothing, for several weeks.

The secured telephone brooded.

The air grew damp around it.

Blotches appeared on the nightstand,

and mildewed. Reconnaissance,

the next dispatch said, and we set about it.



We found the room empty, the beds

stripped, dust patterns inconclusive

but concentric around a hole in the floor.

Lying flat on our stomachs and taking

turns, we observed the following:

The room was perfect -- there wasn't a flaw in it;



but from the dark corners, an order came

squeezing inward, gathering moisture

and cool air, compressing them into

a single thing, wrapped in a shawl

and rocking, rocking, breathing, breathing,

sending up bubbles toward the light.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Graham" <grahamd at ripon.edu>
To: "NewPoetry" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2006 10:16 AM
Subject: [New-Poetry] What's the difference between a duck?


> Sharing a birthday today, the shades of Wallace Stevens and Groucho Marx.
> How perfect is that?
>
>
> Bantams in a Pine-Woods
>
> Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan
> Of tan with henna hackles, halt!
>
> Damned universal cock, as if the sun
> Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.
>
> Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal.
> Your world is you. I am my world.
>
> You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat!
> Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines,
>
> Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs,
> And fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos.
>
> --Wallace Stevens
>
>
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> ====================================================
>
>
>
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