1.

To catch the upgust, the windy slides and levels,

Crawking and snatching, an anxiety of gulls.

2.

Long around a rolled-up postcard from Naples,

Short in needles' eyes, a thrift of thread.

3.

Seven and a fire, among them three guns,

At the cave's mouth a dwindle of partisans.

4.

Sway-necked nibblers, twitching off ticks;

Huffiers, blatters, chumpers, a graze of critics.

5.

Under the gas-pumps a fort, under that Indians,

Then big bones, then ferns, a shingle of history.

6.

They came toward me, thinkers, frowners, changers

Of clothes, Hamlets with ears, a mirror of strangers.

7.

Polishing the dulled air until it burns

So we hear the shining, a candor of horns.

8.

Too many for the corridor, kicking doorsills,

Obscuring the lettered signs, a lurch of rebels.

9.

The skin fair, big in the nose, not quite handsome

Till she smiles: herself: an inflection of chromosomes.

10.

Long dead the painter except his masterpieces,

Their dying delayed only, a varnish of patience.

11.

Pipe in no teeth; blue shirt; waiting for when;

A blanket in a wheelchair; a boatyard of old men.

12.

All for praise and translation and crafty thoughts

Of the new enduring to be old, a devotion of poets.

13.

Better than heartbeat's kick, track, and knocks

Goes beller and boomer, the patrol of clocks.

14.

Collectors want all the prints, all the rocks, they wish

The chronicle whole of angels, a tally of starfish.

15.

Our direction our own, surely it was for this we blew, But when the wind stopped, a sediment of statistics.