Vi

The eyes do not grow old. They become
Clouded sometimes—they cross.
They can sour at hot news or curdle
Like ice melting backwards in cold lumps.
They get their globes glazed
By the heavy gravity of positive to negative,
Promoting collision and the worst kind of collusion;
the kind like white on rice or stink on shit
so you can’t see past it— the glaze.
Eyes become afflicted, they do not grow old.
And as we know, the eyes are the window to the soul.

This morning I saw the immortal soul through the eyes
Of a young old woman who smiled at me over her shoulder
From a bravo afternoon sometime around springtime, 1962.

The chicken or the golden egg

Preparing eyes and ears for a day
is no small feat, no feat too small
for a firebrain, for the wireframe
whatsitgonnabe of whileIsleep.

Why else would the damn thing sing
anagram lovesong architecture
all night long?--kicking while I’m down
but not out, out but not out cold.

Why else’d the damn thing sing
if not to steel my stupid flesh
against the ugliness of calendar
sunshine? Could it be reporting

some bizarre subplot? Or
is it time for shuteye?