Inspired from: “The Man on the Dump” & “The Snow Man”
By Wallace Stevens
Hey Wallace I see them beating on the lard pails.
Everywhere. Below that toothed moon.
Gazing amidst the mist of carbon’s haze.
Their pockets empty, sleeves pressed to precision,
chopped pants low, each with a vision on their own
pushed up clump.
They beat with a crow’s beak to each porous chorus
apart from the part as more piles grow to the choir’s
huff and puff that pump - pump - pump the bulbous dump.
The dew is dry on the cheeks of pretty paper patterns.
Few pedals still drip with slippery, dippy, dew;
but now they chant to a distant antebellum anthem.
The Snow Man comes and he goes,
and the janitor no longer sings, Wallace.
The plethora of his poems just sticky lard.
The pails on his dump addle under a dark moon, and the
bouquet grows cold to the blush of a corbeille sun.
Everywhere. Beating louder to the dew-less cries of a single
azalea on an aptest eve.
The Man beats the lard pails now, Wallace.
Winter creeks to the cracks in the faceless dump
The dead have surrendered, their trash lay withered
with the bearded baptists who sleep in hallowed graves.
The Invisible priests are there, too. The favoured have
discovered the stanza my stone and hide from obscurity.
Listen! Carefully! Behold! The huff and puff
that pump - pump - pump the dump below.
Hey Wallace, have you seen Keats and Poe?
Châz
