Against Those Clouds

Black leafless branches climb out of windows.
The eagle's aerie in those branches is empty.
But inside his fortress in his room
the old eagle is shining as always
among his escutcheons and his sheep carcasses.

A naked woman seeks the naked shadow
of a dressed man.

Slow and heavy rain clouds
appear above the smoke.
They recall the do-nothing kings in their palanquins
that were drawn by oxen.
Children hurl pebbles at those rain clouds
and frequently manage to unhook one.
Then the clouds fall bursting like bladders.
They splash overflow enter and leave
worried fast more old than long
others proudly march backward
and speak the language of crayfish.

White and naked works have fallen asleep
on a tightrope above a square in dishabille.

Enormous and symmetrical pastry
is well protected by white tablecloths
against those sordid little old men with wings
who appear in festoons of greedy swarms.

Gilded hunchbacks.
Sheets of flesh.
Dogs in elephant costume.
A wicked giant turning and turning his head
in the same direction.
His head turns and turns
and grows neighs belches trumpets sneezes
applauded by little children
mounted on the wooden horses of that merry-go-round.

Rubber dumbbells.
Lily-like bulbs.
Diamond hooves.
From the mouths of trees grow the branches
that give freshness
to geometric figures to the warriors of Hastings
who dance pell-mell and exhausted down to the last breath.
The intelligent shadow lays its thinker's brow on its thinker's finger.
It's obvious it thought to itself that I'm not the shadow of a shadow
  but that I'm self-created.

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