(in Southern Indiana 
with Robert Bly,  circa 1974.
I a graduate guest of Brescia College)

action squeezed
between subject and object
with less less less space
to move any argument
much less one’s heart,
he kicks butts
of people places things
trees are horses
stomping through the night
he throws languages around
like a mullah’s rug
rubs wood for heat
seizes the throne
of common sentence
becomes
an indigenous Norwegian 
clansman with antlers 
and the whole business
of bells and other rackets,
what he means is heartily prone
to the fuzz of swirl & twirl
& the squealing spin
of his iron Ferris wheel
built out of thin 
air
      with whole paragraphs
attached to the rim
whose grand gondolas
and loud rollers defy
gravity,
and then begins
his obscene view of looking
up skirts of long legged clouds

he sends boys to the woods
to slap mosquitoes and wrestle
with skinny words,
the girls (even nuns) he keeps
in the garden
his sense makes no sense
and when aliens land
all the world’s a mess
less less less obvious
as the gentle knight dissolves
and his protestant substance
gives this catholic school 
its lesson