To The Poet As A Basement Quilt,

A Perfect Example Of The New Republic's Urge To Drape Itself With The Togas Of Classical Respectability.

The Gray Glaze Of The Past Attacks All Know-how...

So I Cradle This Average Violin That Knows Only Forgotten Showtunes, But Argues The Possibility Of Free Declamation Anchored To A Dull Refrain.

The Ellipse Is As Aimless As That, Stretching Invisibly Into The Future So As To Reappear In Our Present. Its Flexing Is Its Account, Return To The Point Of No Return.

And We May Be Led, Then, Upward Through More Powerful Forms Of Poetry, Past Columns With Peeling Posters On Them, To The Country Of Indifference. Meanwhile If The Swell Diapasons, Blooms Unhappily And Too Soon, The Little People Are Nonetheless Real.