The
Stranger
Jesse
Glass
“If
some would like to turn this into class warfare, I,
that’s not how I think: I think about the overall economy.”
—
George W. Bush, 1/2/2003
Chickens sideways look & peck, pigs
At trough–chew & lightly sip. Hear lips-smack:
Stall-muck-mucker man gropes a peasant
Wife & earns her sly reward
Peasant himself thin as cat-gut
Keen to piss against a wattle wall,
(jewel-bright colors & an average sky
Above the average chilly mud)
While across the painted field our Stranger ambles
Hat in hand, on ground, in hand again, a
Wicker basket slung across his shoulders;
Slipper on one foot, shoe on the other.
Cur dog nips his heels; an owl observes
From a tree. He’s the weak-chinned
Watcher from the Moebius strip,
The Bosch-bred fool come to stand
In a corner of our room & Cough his whistle nose &
mouth
His OOOOO & his entreaty to the dripping walls/ or
Anvil in arms, he tips against the silence
As a diver sways on weighted boots
Against a current of krill
& hoists a fractal brow & horns
& four thrashing branches
In a lunar square
To blanch our peasant toes w/ horror sugar
We rise to run a key along our thumb
He screams
& takes our picture w/ an instant camera
& vaguely embodies something Emerson could have said
During a mudslide
For the Black Ibis walks softly like a maiden
But carries a razor blade beneath its tongue
& the hoopoe is killed by the fat of a gazelle
& the Francolin hates the Cock
& the Cock, in turn, hates the Francolin.
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