“No Black Bird Bates His Banjo”

That day you tried to spell rhinoceros like

The word ridiculous and of course failed

But learned that there’s no cessation like

Success, the self-conscious nest in the self-

Conscious tree, you, the general of the generics

Hanging out with the grunts of the specifics,

And it’s not that you’d rather have a lube job

Than not, like having a lake house but no

Lake in sight, or a sump pump with no

Sump to pump, or “let the candied tongue

Lick absurd pomp,” someone like Hamlet

Said, but how on earth could war ever be

Thought to be glorious, you with your

Movable property, the thorn voiceless but

The person pricked by the thorn voiced,

As in Rainer Maria Rilke, the thorn was

His ruin, the before and the afterthought,

You go wandering with your jerrican,

A peavey and a cant hook in your trailer,

The chainsaw you bought sight unseen, when

You asked if we minded your sharp protuberance,

How could we not, the day you just dumped

Your cargo and said batter my head three-cornered

Hat, whipsaw, grease, and you had once heard

Creased lightning, and Oh well, you’re out in the garden

Again, thick with jargon, words rolled into logs

And logs rolled into the river—that’s a song you

Can’t play, no matter how wildly you flap your wings.

Notes:

The title is a line from poem 686, “It makes no difference abroad –,” from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R.W. Franklin.

Source: Poetry (November 2020)