THESE AREN'T THE MAGES YOU'RE LOOKING FOR

          The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
               -Francis Bacon


As inevitably as Shakespeare
showed in london
with his pitch

not to take it easy, but

to take the language pro—

so now, the role of every

subsequent poet

is surely not 

to stand up
and unscrew the sun

just to examine 
and explain how it works,
but to strip prose

of its church clothes
and send it off hunting in
bewilderment’s woods—

not to tell it 

like it is, but

to fling birds at bushes
and see what child-
ish sentiment sticks—

to honor the message,
yes, (especially
in public), but

in private, to
fetishize the muffled
mouth of art 

as hooked earth-

worms worship

before the tongues of fish 

while they chant ever on 

to their hearts

(as they must) 

in their rude, rusted 

pidgin: this rough, 

confused English.