for T.S. Eliot
Every poet is tortured by everything the same:
the leading idea in political studies:
the Sacred and Profane.
The rebel spilling blood inside the palace, white.
The dirty pun inside the poem in plain sight.
The permissive parent is the paradigm of the Left.
To cure this the bottom of the top is bereft.
The roof has the glory and the sun
but in language’s basement this woman weighs a ton.
You cannot say what you mean
unless your meter is like gasoline.
You cannot be a liberal. “Please understand
my childhood! My severed hand!”
Look. The intricate patterns on dresses divine
sliding down goddesses by the Nile and the Rhine.
They will shift their expressions
as the poet attempts to be
in all matters assured in the practice of poetry.
There is a poem. And here is your glue.
Make things matter. No, Tom, her smile wasn’t for you.