I wonder what Ronald Reagan’s hair does when he’s sleeping? Does it have a traveling life like Gogol’s “nose” and if so, does it revert to a natural gray? Does it turn up wagging at a strangers door?
**
Pentti Saarikoski:
“Kaikki minkä valveilla
näen on kuolemaa,
kaikki minkä nukkuessani, unta.”
Everything behind us
Is death I see,
Everything slept, dream.
—Cafe Strindberg, Helsinki, coffee steam on windows…
**
Eyes so wild he can’t flirt. But what if flirting is boring?
**
Now and then I have to whisper to myself as if a train station is a library.
**
Dear Mother:
Again I have failed. This time in the Punjab. Please send train tickets and a little tin of biscuits with the Queen’s face on the lid.
**
Reagan’s “Star Wars”—like selling toasters really. He learned everything at General Electric. At an embassy party last night I saw all the young Georgetown men yapping that it’s real. Smiling, glassy eyed schmucks.
Planet of the Blind 