Old poets never smile;
they stare at us with
disappointed intelligence,
desperate to comprehend
our stupidity and blaming
themselves forever for
every motherless, howling
child engendered by their
absent-minded, wilderness-
wandering sperm, condescending
as a subtle but clinging
mist falling invisibly down
out of those white, amorphous,
radiant clouds that hover
here and there and move on
again, inquiring persistently
for someone they used to know
on this planet, and sometimes
their frantic, frustrated
searchlights burn circles
into the fields.

01/24/2008