rejection slip

the area of our unconcern 
is so vast 
only the marble statuary on our lots 
can last 

will the Maenads of the Common Room 
jig to it 
with their goggle-eyed disciples in a 
wig to wit 

conjugating for the class “accessibility”
at the blackboard 
as what-you-will not Modern 
like a buckboard? 

not that anything we like 
is Amish 
Christ’s folk always seem too 
Uncle Tomish 

the poet Yüan Chên in a dream

asleep my arm in yours a-roam at night 
awake nothing stopping my tears but my handkerchief 
ill I’ve been thrice since beside the Ch’ang 
your grave at Hsien-yang has seen eight autumns 
you beneath the wells your bones in mud 
I a whitehaired man in this crowded world 
my son-in-law my son both followed in turn 
at Night's Terrace were they known to you? 

a kid for two farthings

a race of scorpions drives them 
like maddened cattle in the streets 
to burn for trash the emblems of democracy 
and freedom lo the cities waxed 
empty and the mere name of men 
bruited about by Holland auctioneers