Let’s begin: 

Into the Dark Wood, buzzards roost, 

where the sun is silent

— The Empire State Express air-horns 

in from the City, 54 miles 

per hour on average c. 1903— 

Pound, by stress & syllable, went 

up The Hill, from Utica Station, thru

Clinton, to “that desolate mountain top” 

(as Ez put it to his pop-pop, Homer 

Loomis, in a letter), 

there abiding the requisite gibbet 

of noon rhetoricals & slough philology, 

which leave poetry twisting in the wind 

like a condemned thief;

that he might, then, be free to wander the Root Glen—

        American pachysandra, 

Canadian moonseed, primroses & peonies, 

azalias & astibles 

(“ennobling nature,” as advertised by 

college administrators)—

listening for the rimes of troubadours, 

them fellaz who got it 

right, philosophy right down to nothin’ but 

a hot melody in a hot skirt 

& a poniard in the heart, 

which is also a lake trobared by fear

that is neither near nor far 

but is & is deep; them fellaz 

who choked flowery language with mouthfuls 

of broke stems

or drowned love’s petals in steaming 

modern piss, a lake of it,

which I swim on this very bend I’m now takin’

thru the Glen’s overly-

mannered trail, the color of the tree leaves

         trending like Ombré hair;

where last week, campus police arrested 

two students for possession

& interrupted a Junior putting the moves,

smooth as a dead moose, on

a dead-eyed co-ed. Ennobling nature left 

twisted in the wind. 

Meeting adjourned.