(A Letter from Hammertown to the Bottom of the East River)

Well screw you
Albert Ayler,
it is so about me--

if I could
leap the pommelhorse
of self I wouldn't

have failed gym,
let alone the real horses
I pemmicaned on field trips,

the chicken pavilions,
veal pens, the eels
I stashed without appetite, Creeley

reminds us
that all heat is derived
from some animal,

that deliberate misreading
ends in disappointment,
like Burgess Meredith

as Borges--
libraries are for losers,
no more than a bus passenger

controls the route
can we be said
to skate between the periods &

you & Shepp
& all the armies of death metaldom
could no more wake Enitharmon

than a cheap brass clock
in an aluminum pail
struck by lightning.