to loom as the bees must,

dancing handke’s mad-
libbed epic of peace, all 
the blanks stuffed flush 
with fur-plucked pollen,
but verve and vinegar stirring
the stinger to sword dance; all
 
while homer’s left yodeling dou-
ghy contortions of thinning O-
dysseus simpering, spared
from the canker of sacking
troy—all the aching achaeans
employed or destroyed to but
batten fidelity’s restless root rot;
 
burroughs, encamped in corn fields, 
having now found the fork denuded
to some cruel clot of paling plastic 
flaccidly packed in the cat-scratched
billiards room on a clue board; fancies
his shotgun, something his gods had imp-
arted with, smiling so wildly, just 
 
one onerous purpose proposing that 
holes should be where somebody seeks them,
stuffs the muzzle, begrudging as bub-
bling babies spit back rations of steel-
scrapped carrots, with clots of cox-
combed paint, takes aim and, wincing, 
fires—but 
                                            muslin inspired to 
                                    sort out some soberly
                                   sobbing acrylic now
               creeping out under the frame     of
 
bees still dancing 
handke’s mad-libbed
epic of peace, left
peaceably petering 
into the suet-slopped
floor drain ants must ford from
                              seven to seven
                              it seems.