Fanning myself with the Selected Andrew Marvel,
I had just decided Byron and Marvel were the same;
if this sounds like the beginning of a novel,
it’s because I should write a novel but I dare not put one to my name.
I feel the poem is the greater marvel.
It must be minutes ago, now, I wrote:
“Calling out to the bright sublime
with sweet attitude and sweeter rhyme,
I invoke the poets who went before.
I cannot stand contemporary poetry anymore.”
I thought: if none has coupled “bright” with “sublime”
I must be the first to do it—and I shall do it at once—
and I will “call out” to it. “Oh bright su-blime!”
Summer’s dissembling.
Hurry up, please. It’s time.