Crusade

to Paul Muldoon,
  in the knowledge that
  its time has come.

Only it
In itself
Has raised the problem
So that
Wittingly
Its full bravura
Can be discharged
Like a
Volcanic
Ejaculation
In the face of
The humdrum and
The panjandrum.
It is so very touching
As it touches itself,
Willowy fingers
Wisping through all the
Articulations and
The twisted nerve-endings
So that
En fin
Pleasure
Sacred pleasure
May be had,
Amidst all the innuendo
And the insinuation,
The tortuous
Path of the sinewy
And the muscular
Marching triumphally
To its own very valid collusion.
And o
The sinews become tense
And reflective,
They tremble with the fatigue of
Potent contraction,
Constructing the purposeful and
The jerky
Out of the pure,
Erecting the fanciful and
The cocky
Out of the benign,
In one delightful spasm
Of love most carnal,
Love for oneself,
As you ride and
As you thrust forward
Your tongue into
Collectiveness,
Licking greedily the
Sweat-drops and the fetid
Secretions of
A thousand minds at work
Under the sun,
Licking greedily and
Speaking up,
Lustily subtracting from
From so much mater
The means to justify one self.
And yet it does not matter
And yet it does,
As you vacillate between
Your dawn and dusk,
This is no field-day in the
Mighty sun,
This is a pendulum
Of hit and run,
No mid of day or summer
To enfold the senses
But hasty calibration of
Myopic lenses,
Like the clocking of a
Paradise to a millisecond,
Back and forth
Amassing in your palm
The grease to keep your
Grinder going.
And yet this palming off
Must be a grind,
As you insist on palming beauty
And behaving like a jack.
And yet beware
How you overspend your vital juices
Beware
How you overplay your hand in
These here affairs
Of the tongue
For it is certain that
Your end is not in
Palmistry,
You are no mean
Juggler
Or uncommon fool,
You are supposed
Instead
To cry
With the lesser part of eloquence
And the greater part of joy
Joy in the gift received
And rendered whole,
A cure as wholesome
As an affirmation
Of that
Most high
Romantic
Wizardry,
That most arcane
Complexity of the
Mundane,
So do not ever yet
Try to escape,
Do not attempt the
Grand elopement or
The theft
Of all that is supposed
To stay
And conspire,
Breathing its lusty life
Into your strange
Concoctions,
Conditioning your artificial
Feet to the
Delicacy of the natural,
The soles barely touching
Their foot
Prints
And all this touching
And this solecism
Allowed
In that it makes your
Walking true
And memorable.
There’s no back-tracking
From this strand
Unless
In utter
Thoughtlessness,
As your heart refuses to quicken
And the potsherds
Contained in the flotsam
Are unable
To recollect themselves
Into any vessel of
Immediate use,
And in short
You are afraid,
Cast-away fearsome creature
Most afraid of
Being feared
You,
With your lays
And playful ways,
Feared and thus
Assigned
To higher duty,
Unable to shake off
This response-ability
Most
Epic, –
At that
Unmeditated landing
Do not hesitate
But walk away
Instead
Most subtly
And most truly
Into the jungle,
Mapping the inhospitable terrain
And never ceasing to imagine
Ways of
Transport,
Industrious means
And exorbitant inventions
To take you
Deeper and deeper into the
Main,
Never afraid
And always feared,
Affable fabricator
Of the fabulous,
Humane
Yet mighty
O in the grasp
Of your
Sweaty palms,
As you unearth and
Scurry
And make inroads
Into the set-aside or
Diss-
Solution of
Your
Self,
O resolute
O silly
Palmer
To most
Holy
Lands.