So I go around in the bucket of my skull,
Free will, predestination, foot odors, love life regrets,
A clattering pipe in the wall,
Scraps of poems flaring like match heads—
In all shapes
He found a secret and mysterious soul,
A fragrance and a spirit of strange meaning.
Perhaps my bucket has a leak,
Likely some rust…
Like Wordsworth I’m more than happy
In the childhoods—
In my grandmother’s attic with a Victrola.
How odd, its needle like the proboscis
Of an insect, the platter covered with green baize
As if one might throw down poker chips instead of a record.
It was most certainly a gambler’s machine.
I’d put the needle on a fast spinning disc
To hear something uncanny…arias and folk songs
Sung by dead people.
The wind up mechanism with its crank…
Planet of the Blind 