Easter was the old North

Brazen clarinet, but with its column of vibratingAir shaped not in a cylinder but in a coneWidening ever outward and bawaah spoutingInfinitely upward through an upturnedSwollen golden bell rimmedLike a gloxinia floweringIn Sax’s Belgian imaginationAnd in the unfathomable matrixOf mothers and fathers as a genius gravenHumming into the cells of the bodyOr cupped in the…

Sitting upright in the transit system, the widowlike womenWait, hands folded in their laps, as monumental as bread.In the shopping center lots, lights mounted on cold standardsTower and stir, condensing the blue vapourOf the stars; between the rows of cars people in coats walkBundling packages in their arms or holding the hands of children.Across the…

And troubles, clinging in stubborn coloniesLike pulpy shore-life battened on a jetty.Slashed by the little deaths of sleep and pleasure,They swell in the nurturing spasms of the waves,Sucking to cling; and even in death itself—Baked, frozen—they shrink to grip the granite harder.“Rid yourself of attachments and aversions”—But in her father’s orchard, already, he saysHe’d like…

Charactersrobot leaderrobot tworobot threerobot foursimon powersmirandaSimon’s daughter from a previous marriage.evvySimon’s third, ‘final’ wife.nicholasSimon’s protégé and adopted son. Prosthetic limbs.the united waythe united nationsthe administrationthe world’s miseries* * *[The robots roll and lurch and glide onstage as a single mass of parts, an animated scaffold of struts and gears. The elements of this jumble devolve…

You must have amazed that half-respectable streetOf triple-decker families and rooming-house housepaintersThe day that the bole-ankled oversized hams of your legsBobbed in procession up the crazy-paved front walkEmbraced by the arms of Mr. Poppik the seltzer manAnd Corydon his black-skinned helper, tendering your thighsThick as a man up our steps. We are not reptiles:Even the…

Thirsty and languorous after their long black sleepThe old gods crooned and shuffled and shook their heads.Dry, dry. By railroad they set outAcross the desert of stars to drink the worldOur mouths had soakedIn the strange sentences we madeWhile they were asleep: a pollen-tintedSlurry of passion and lapsedIntention, whose imaginedTaste made the savage deities hiss…