I Am the President of Regulation

I am the Giant Goliath,

I digest goat cheese.

I am a mammoth's calf. (H. Ball)

I know your pinnacles by name.

My fingers close around

your fingers. I grow pale.

I become your executioner.

I come forth fat & bloody.

I propose a toast to peace.

I am the president of regulation.

None are savvier than I.

I forge a pact with murderers.

I claw my way to freedom.

Mark my words. I have no time

to be your humble servant.

I make a rope from women's hair.

I bite into the mighty pippin.

I turn & then return by turning.

I turn a vessel over with my hands.

I turn a pretty penny.

I am called the lord of dimes.

I turn my thoughts to daily deeds.

I turn my eyes to heaven.

I turn a screw no one has turned

before me. I predicate

& postposition freely.

In me the numbers come to naught.

I find a secret world in mirrors.

My fingernails are pale,

my steps are perpendicular.

I parachute & strut.

I seek acceleration day by day.

I am a man who swims among the drifters.

Istanbul is not my home.

I turn a page & listen.

I am as hard as nails.

My body swells from all the sounds inside it.

I show myself in dreams.

Copyright Credit: "I Am the President of Regulation" By Jerome Rothenberg, from A Book of Witness: Spells and Gris-Gris, copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 by Jerome Rothenberg. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Source: A Book of Witness: Spells and Gris-Gris (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2003)