Angle
Scholars of foreign nations teach
that Pigeons will fly forty miles
for a breakfast. So be quiet
for a while and let’s go see what
int’rest the Trouts will pay us. Nor
let us get snagged upon the lost
credit of the poor despised Chub,
the fluid watery humour
with which all such do abound, or
the gravid drag of the jighead.
Grandpa preferred motorless troll,
bobbers, silence, sensitive pole,
recycled guts in crawdad traps,
and secret lakes unmarked on maps.
PG&E ex nihilo
created waters, built up dams:
modern constructions, grandiose,
unknown to mortal fisherman.
Venerable Bede says there’s an
island of England called Ely
for the innumerable Eels
born there. Other lands give Roughy,
Crappie, struck dumb by the lures of
blessed (happy) piscatores,
rich in fish, death-bound without a
further wish.
*
Herberti Hooverii Somnium
My nightcap’s inside out a-
gain, a sign, of what-a-scene:
of basalt, bismuth, fluorspar
burnt out from earthen sunken
seams unseen by men above,
which our Agricola laid
bare in his Metallica.
Or Lou-Lou did he speak, de
re, of one Metallic thing?
Lou Henry grammar swirls
in this generative matrix
as the flowing allantois
fuses to firm chorion.
Lou Henry, Lou Henry, my
love, there are veins, too, beneath
the earth. Down there is no dark
nescio quod but a world,
a counter-world bearing wealth
beyond all surface scuttlers’
dreams.
*
A Remedy
Our worshipful company of grocers
swears by the restorative effects of
common gum, Bubble Yum, pyrotechnic
powder of gun. Phenylketonurics
(this is vocative): your tonic contains
phenylalanine. Yea, this theriac
wants saxifrage. Palatine sortilege
foretells saccharine electuary
going down like eggs of estuary
birds preserved in Mithridatic honey.
And damaged brains. And mountains of money.
