Drum

by Lyn Hejinian

Drum 1

On my wrist is a watch dog but it’s only here
that it’s an image. There it wore four shoes, two
neon green and two bright pink. It’s another
labyrinthine day in the life, etc. Witness
the fence fibers half buried in rain. Argument
is always underwritten. All one needs is a drum
to beat. Sense (truant tumult troglodyte bushing)
will follow with a “lovely laugh” at the world
of choice. Bring on the hurdy–gurdy improvising
player from outside Bordeaux. Meaning
will always turn up now and then in civil society
putting things in strange unnecessary places.

Drum 2

Every similitude spawns an inchoate metaphor, a fireplace
like a hole in the heel. Everybody, take your place
in foreign parts. Time is designed to frustrate. Deprived
by old age of the right to be heard, a woman puts her X
on freedom at midnight, which is like sipping at mint tea
in a cold café near a French zoological park. Not everyone
can keep a secret from wandering nor find constructive principles
in irrational thought. Workers instead stage a slow–down, work
becomes musical comedy, and style is a hive of purring honeybees
on the road and available for hire. The imperative has had its say,
now is the time for questions. Put your glasses to boot. The
postmark
on every missive that arrives is illegible. Time is our pilot.