16. in the muck
there’s a general fog lying over the world
and it’s leaked itself into my head
all the old subjects melting together in there
with its vague breath — the dids and donts and
shouldas stirring into the wouldas and
cants and ifonlys
i tell you there are no images to cling to
in this bottomless sea or maybe
dank quarry
fetid loch
but there must be a thesis
there must be a point
some divine lesson
swelling deep in the muck
and this insistent message
rises now with
prehistoric menace up
from the unimaginable deep
