14 January 2006

Out of a Poem of Words Perfectly Inexact

Out of a poem of words perfectly inexact
You will discover my meaning, who now
Wince in so many ways under my love
As if it were a distant relative
Come unexpectedly
To spend the week-end, or a kangaroo
Delivered without instructions as to diet.
Not a kiss interrupted by your timidities
Nor a long loving look from which you turn your eyes
Will give you this direction;
Neither will your rational conclusions.
You will bend over me
As a pianist who discovers his mistake
And walks, surprised, into a city of curious customs
Which was not there last time he came this road.

    Jake Falstaff

2 comments:

shanna said...

that's from 1937? seems thoroughly contemporary!

Alex Gildzen said...

Fetzer died in 1936. this poem appears in the posthumous collection several before "Valedictory (New York, June 25, 1929)." but I don't the date of its first publication.