SITTING INDOORS TO WRITE POEMS (a cento)


My tiny boat, with my young playmates round,
Might guide the élan of hardier passersby.
Seeing the summit pierce the abstract heavens,
I see the cherry, flaked and fresh,
When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)
The sliding shapes to find which place is which
Where Tim the ostler listened. His face was white and peaked.
But here I stand, an average-looking man
Of the decaying mind. There
The chorus sing in a victory ode—What is a nobody?
He swam in a puddle.