So the poet, the talker,
aims
his
words at the object, and his words go
faster and faster, and now he
is
like a cyclotron, breaking into
the structure of things by repeated
speed and force in order to lay bare
in words, naturally, unworded
insides of things, the things that are there.
THE TRIAL
Increases. Chair-legs kick
Snow off the railing, take down
Three men with them, and want
The pure air to be sick
With broken bones. They taunt
All laws-having to clown,
Maybe, or freeze; but the van
Waits, and given a home
In unrolled gunny sacks,
They are set right. For Court
Rests on good men-the sort
(When boys would stand and frown)
Who'll seize a sofa next
And walk
it
off, unvexed,
(All for a Golden Dome)
Like nothing. Where's the bed
But carried according to plan?
And though, as it goes past
By piecemeal, on three backs,
The blonde
in
the doorway
Yells as if any delay
Were a judgment on her head,
She gladdens. Things move fast.
Donald Hall
