CANTO 6 He or she

 

He or she, she or he, you it we me does swoop in unannounced,

plumping down cantos vatic-like, thumping

ghost in the vatic.

You won’t catch me apologizing for no ex cathedra puns,

but you’ll catch me in acts of total self-

consciousness, like right now, but so what?

The details of my world are too

solipsistic, boring, narcissistic, overwhelming,

idiosyncratic, prosaic,hermetic, sacred, involuted,

alienated, mosaic, intimidating, introverted, catholic, alive

in the evanescent ever-nascent here-and-now to even deal with,

especially since in their own way they’re exactly like yours,

except that yours are if at all possible even more real

if I could see them (since I’m too close to mine for comfort).

Therefore anything I might say to you, say about

a fresh fungus bulging out of a stump,

all white with mottled bright orange,

and how I can feel it itching as if it were growing on my skin,

would constitute a sacred text?

Indeed. Bears examining.

Bears examining locust-filled swamp,

finding no honey. Wet dewdrops trail infancy

from words that fall faster then ever now,

with no hope of catching up, but always dipping

in with a net, see here a big splashy flopping

walloper, EMANATIONS, that’s a walloper, great catch,

but you should have seen the One that got away.

 

(I didn’t see it either. But approaching,

always approaching, a dark flash in the stream,

receding always.)

 

Bears watching.