Appetite (15)

A man could center himself as if,
walk up or walk off appetite,

endorse the peppery steeps,
the physics of pure arms

and every turn of century, retiring
into it, its effervescence say,

or marimba simmerings, its brooding
or now its bright-grim

president:  images shaped as such
plasticity permitted,

of foils or old cork, fabrics stretched
to suit the pane of an idea...

A people dines and warms itself,
accepting itself in drafts,

and in the plates wait-staffs submit
before its gazing, letting

capacities attain, a bargain land
attain theatrical extensions,

filling the air where Swedes had eeked
their living through a century,

and left the daylight smouldering,
and, hand-to-mouth, and once,

became these uniforms, careers and accents
sorting after men.  "Hallowell,"

I think, easing affairs and thirsts,
coming to see that even

Europe had its limits, rearing its ruins
and parched taboos,

and its capacities to insult: he offers
himself tonight, with toasts

tonight, in feats of glaze or seasonings,
easing the men to healths,

and brides to slants of sympathy,
"Hallowell," I think, feeling

himself the flex of the ships' menus
and desires, delivering

the men to sweet exemptions
from the choke-holds,

to intimations say, another source
where hands revisit

or set drift, promising
the means-to-do,

the eyes that wait bright treats
these floorshows

and new
moons.

 

© Robert Lietz