I was reading about dinosaurs:

Once the scratching phase is over, and the mirage

Or menage has begun, and the world lies open

To the radiation theory (tons of radiation, think of it,

Reversing all normal procedures

So that the pessimistic ball of wax begins

To slide down the inclined plane again

Bringing further concepts to their doom while encouraging

The infinity of loose ends that

Is taking over our government and threatening to become life as we know it!)

It is time to slink off to one’s post in some cold desert

(Not the Sahara, more like the Gobi actually)

And wait amid that sadness known as banishment

For the point to reappear, though it may never do so,

And what was that strange uniform?

Only that we lived happily in ever-after land

And the fire of my mind was still with us then

Prevented the object of these negotiations from becoming a toy

Farther down the keyboard (and of course this did happen

Later on, every potential is realized if one waits long enough,

Only by that time the context may have faded, fragile

As summersweet or the light on a windowsill, and then,

And then, why the text will be seen as regular

Only no one wants to play anymore; games

Have their fashions much as truth does) and our lives from

Being turned into a shambles too large to deal with, unreasonable;

And as masonry weathers, as moths are silently at work in blankets

Even as you read this, I saw no reason for complaint

Or murmur and the entourage liked me, agreeing

With me that this wasn’t the right time nor place,

That arguments would be foreshortened if initiated now.

Yet this toothache that never seems to go away,

Burning mildly through the night, heartbeat

Of something, augurs no calamity unless leagues

And leagues of silent forest canopied by matte-gray

Sky are to be construed as such, but I think our peace

Should be given the benefit of a doubt and allowances

Surely made for all our thoughts and daily activities

If peace is what we really want, Roman

Candles ripping open the evening notwithstanding.

It’s so easy to trudge and pretend to be a boy

When deep down what you want is asking,

Not rich assurances that are autumnal

In the way they finally work out and become a sad

Though voluminous and vital commentary on our standing

Impatiently, waiting for the weather to make the first move,

And when this happens, be the first to scurry away

Complaining inaudibly and in general installing

Oneself as a capital nuisance, never to be given the time of day again.

And if this should happen there are always windows

With flower-boxes and dreamy young girls just behind them.

There are birds who stop by for one last agitated farewell

Before the long flight to the south, and so much more

To prevent the ultimatum from being drawn up that really

In the first falling flakes a job does get done:

Energy left over from some previous and saucy commitment

Turns out not to have been such a bad option. The drilling

Of noon insects in high summer had to precede this or something

Else, the dream be given texture and further substance

Because of something. It seems

Shipshape now. Everything seems to be all right.

The storm, you see, told none of its secrets,

Gave nothing away. There would have been no one to repeat it to

In any case. And the signs of stress that follow

In the wake of confusion are there to be read

If that is what one wants, but the electricity

Bakes them into shapes of its own cognizance, its wanting

To give us something a little better to spend

The rest of our lives looking for, wondering whether it got misplaced.

In the old days this would have been on the house.