Word: one-man vaudeville show.
Diamond-handed gambler or philosophic ambler
(spectacle-nosed, all Hem all Hmm all Haw);
quick-skipper, juggler, mugger extraordinary;
strategic bridge, ferry,
ledge that lets fall
the criminal:
yet word, we know
shrinks workless before two:
music and you.
At music takes bound-and-gagged back seat,
or lolls at home all day in negligee,
not needed, unheeded;
musty, rusty in mothball attic,
definitely on Sabbatic.
Likewise at your side, word is tongue-tied.
Founders, is grounded, graceless, loses face.
Since love needs only looks, not books.
My personal word, sick of claptrap trick,
not grown up yet to nurse’s healing power,
can only brandish rubber dagger, toy arrow.
Abroad in fur-collared coat and gloves with untorn seam,
what I should write about remains mere tongueless dream.
As at death of one not history-laden,
but humanly weak and near: from them I turn away
for whom am sorrier than I can say.
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