George Starbuck
THE WORD
(fugue on a theme
by
Dugan, a theme
by
Stevens)
Word was that what word was
would be first.
Reared back for the wild weird
outburst,
Chaos, impatient, agog,
heard
what the great name uttered.
Let it be with it. Wow. What it
was was
the the!
Everything anything, Alpha, Omega,
theirs! on a first-name basis! Get this free
introductory the-
ology starter you name it you take it, all
hell and the kitchen sink at your beck and call!
The discount coupon. The servomotor. The larch.
The spectacles on the kerbstone after the peacemarch
and the right front wheel still spinning on the Le Car
and the bonze in the El Al also "create facts."
Stride into the donnybrook of molecular impacts.
It
is as America's only purely
original living poet already
said: the the is the.
