On the Ampersand

Ampersand, thou bleak exuberance!
Proper scrupulosity, pert knot
Saucily conjoining burly terms,
Like piston & flange, like fish & chips :
Something of thy mopey joie de vivre
Starts to penetrate our foolish hearts,
Insolent & modest, brash & sly.
Bacchanalian austerities
Come a dime a dozen; thou art rare,
Both bawdy & chaste, both fierce & mild.
Is it so strange that we've been in thrall
To thy rigid brand of fecklessness,
Thy premeditated nonchalance
And thy chuckleheaded savoir faire?
O thou loutish chum, crestfallen clown,
Give me all thy dubious certitude,
All thy solemn slapstick, tristful mirth!
Sage & silly arbiter of bliss,
Dolorous ecstatic ampersand.

Commonwealth Avenue Mall

Sparrow, fierce extortionist!
I have no more crumbs.

Chapter

Autumn's revision, brothers, must be bold,
Hatred forsaken, avarice cast aside.

November is austerity's beginning,
Slaying of blisses, end of blithest dream.

All vex and blither, language that explores
Our grandest griefs, pretending to explain.

Transcribe belle mort, bête jaune, invidium.
Our psalmody make plain, our lives make pure.

All words have meaning. Nature's fleeting words
In season, out of season, sermonize:

The Preacher's chasing after wind, Job's woes,
Bitterest balm of perishing and birth.

But have we eyes to see or ears to hear
The messages, the proofs, the pictures plain?

Truth of a time, of every saeculum,
Impinging on the sacred-sordid globe,

Invading groves of plastic, lakes of glass,
To change the page, alter the chronicle

Of hearts and spirits, merrily sad, all souls
Briskly evading their terrible greatest need.

Anaphora

If I could perpetrate lucidity, I would be joyful beyond the ability to calculate. I would consent to be interviewed by the stars of the midnight sky. I would compose immortal odes to Cynthia. I would recover the losses of eighteen years ago. I would be embarrassingly precise, especially about birthdays. I would make the mystics blush. I would find the perpendicular bisector of the segment connecting contemplation and distraction. I would search for my favorite season. Nameless angels would impinge upon my terrible hours of leisure. I would be thankful for three nights of imprisonment. I would grab the nearest Muse and wrestle her to ecstasy. I would broadcast several episodes of wonder. I would praise the braids of an arcane temptress. Sleep would bring dreams of a distant dormitory, the perfect emporium of bliss.