with a beautiful girl, discussing literature at rainbow serpent

As storm clouds grow and roil I tell her

I’ve no favourite authors; a poet who reads

no poems, non-literary, non-decorous,

an image seer and hoarder
of light boiled to glassy vision

but no thief –

running my mouth

I say ‘original’, straighten the tassels

on the Chai Tent’s ragged rug
and comment on the statuesque
cheeks the pre-dawn affords her.

“But if it’s as you say then what are

your ideas but untruths,

errors, dead letters in silvery water?
I bet there’s nothing in them
Proust hasn’t explored- and that

spiritualism was exhausted
by Hesse how many years before!”

                                                                        “Reading is, you know, like the writer’s
                                                                          test;

                                                                          know the minds

                                                                          who thought of it all, then

                                                                          try to think of more.”

Tassels gone awry again and

damp seeping through my pants,

I can hear Erik Satie’s nightmusic

When I see her literally fly into outer space.