​The bread was riddled with little holes,
Little black specks were moving
On it and through it, parts were
Powdery, shapeless, creatures grooving

Tunnels, stumbling into each other,
Blindly biting, the bread discarded
On a pine-needle ground, it fed
The chipmunk and the guarded

Porcupine, the traveler saw the
Snapping turtle, the suspicious
Crow, the coming hundred years,
The tooth marks of the avaricious

Bear, the sniffing wolf, he saw
The rotten loaf of bread dissolve,
The lichen and the ostrich fern,
The slow, windy dawn resolve

Into light, the undergrowth,
The vines, the nematodes,
The men that tend the planet
And walk along the forest roads.

​When the world is filled with gilded lies,
With thoughts that are echoes of thoughts,
With chaotic, shapeless ideas, with
Barbaric wars and onslaughts,

Murder and riots, then a person
Who is upright, whose life is holy,
Whose vision of the world, its coastlines,
Its tides, its waves tumbling slowly,

Its crumbling foam and buried crabs
Comes the source of life and peace,
Finds his place, he finds his courage,
He finds his goal, overhead the geese

Fly to their goal, he knows, he shivers
With the knowing that only
The humble, only those who seek peace,
Only those who seek God, lonely

As they must be, maintain the world,
Their inspiration strikes others
Of renown, the bread lines decrease,
The parks are filled with children and mothers

​Well, the world is filled with bilious
Lies, they are pulling out the floor
As they point at the clouds, outside,
They are replacing the trees with more

And more weeds and calling it home.
They drive through the streets, and
Behind them billows an emptiness,
Chaos, reeking of chlorine, the sand

Is splotched with blood (not theirs,
Ours, we deserve it), any pile
Of skulls is fine, as long as they 
Can climb on top, and in this vile

Anarchy, if you love life, if
You retain our mind, if you recall
And you foresee a world of life and
Peace, the cascade of the waterfall,

Your spirit grows stronger, you
Recall your arc of teleology,
That only we, who are softspoken,
Who love peace and seek Divinity

Will rescue this lucent world
That spins in disinterested space,
We are the pillars of this pillarless world
To restore its mind and heart and face.

​You know how it is when the rain
Invests the grass, the air,
With a scent that tells you there
Is more than taxes and care,

And those trees with their incipient
Leaves know that their leaves
Are not enough, are just, just--
Beyond a land that grieves,

Everything will return to shine,
The way it was before there was
Before, when everything was soaked
In light and buzzed with the buzz

Of a vibration that palely released
Its energies upon our ears.
It’s still there, along the piers
And sizzling along all our frontiers.

​The snake coils around, next to
Your heel. It is at ease. Continue
Your prayer—I mean, you yourself
Are entwined with God, every sinew,

The eclipse dims the afternoon,
Nitrous oxide smudges the hills.
Continue to pray, don’t cast your mind
Into the snake, the smoke of the mills,

The griffin rides the thermal currents,
It is not frightened of a coiled snake,
In fact, the sight of the snake 
Sharpens its eyes. Over the lake,

It knows what it will do. The plain
Is strewn with strained volcanic rocks,
In space, the black hole releases light,
And the yoke guides the lumbering ox.

​In a little world, everything is
Small. There’s a small bed, there’s
A small museum, a small head, 
A small zoo and small bears,

A small library, a small 
Parliament, and a small amount
Of oxygen. If you need the wide,
Open spaces, you gallop, you mount

Mount St. Helens, it doesn’t amount
To a hill of beans, not even the painted
Desert, not even Pluto, coasting
Down its slide, you’re already acquainted

With every tired cinnabar nebula,
With every species of ant, with each
Fundamental force of nature (yawn),
You slam the brakes and screech.

My gosh, you’re sinking into the quantum
Sinkhole, little strings are squiggling
Under your overalls, your cell phone
Has no service, you feel the niggling

Of your own skin, of your own breath,
And the rasping skin of the sky is
Warmed-over death, you desperately look
At the root of the tree in Cadiz,

At the bumps of atoms on a copper bar,
They forget they are atoms, time
Forgets that it flows, beginning is end,
Infinity speaks from the sprite of a lime.

​What’s fit for a sardine isn’t fit
For a shark. Trust me, I know!
Or take a bear, for example. His
Diet might leave an aardvark bloa-

Ted. And if you took your deepest
Urges, those you’re pretty much
Still working on, and turned them
Into silkscreen images, such

A commotion you would cause 
In the New York City galleries!
And yet what is better than salt
On a steak and port on its lees?

So don’t be such a wise-acre. Don’t
Turn your spirits into spirit. In
The end, even therapy has to end,
No more to teach Rin-Tin-Tin,

And whatever you keep throwing
In the wash and can’t get rid
Of the stain, will be redeemed one day
Together with Billy the Kid.