An Accompaniment

Anyway, I still think you're as cool
as the air from a glass of ice water
just before you sip,

to plagiarize Katherine Mansfield's "Miss
Brill," and probably
inaccurately. That
was a sad story, but really
she got off easy. She'd have got
socked in the eye if it was
Flannery O'Connor writing!

That was the main thing
I wanted to say. The part
about you being cool. Not adulation,
precisely, but not cold, clinical
assessment either. Where you're concerned,
I have acquired a marked (and valid)
bias. In any event: it's gratuitous
surely, but complimentary,
like an egg roll
when you're dining at the good Chinese place,
or frequently enough,
an eye roll no matter where
you're dining, depending on who with.

Some people

cloak their true feelings
in an elaborately-woven prose web, spoken
with a soft glow
and, they hope, passing
the goods safely undetected. Cruelly,
I mimic these clowns with a mocking twist: I throw
all my true feelings naked and exposed, quivering

into said woven web with same spoken glow,
and see just what the fuck will be taken
from that, pray tell? BY GOD,
Typically,
I needn't have worried, since
who takes anything seriously when
it's beautifully worded?

People don't talk like that

seriously, do they? Oh, do they. With my
or rather with this sweet trick, you can
and I do
get away with saying everything
one feels,

from the deepest of heart through
the backest of mind to the toppest of head,
springing lightly out from the tippest of tongue
and going in swift, sweet and neat by the ears
- the chimneys of the soul - down we slide now, hello!
Yes, it's Santa Claus, or someone
bearing big sacks of gifts
and some stuff to knock your socks off, flying forthwith
nailed to the mantel suddenly (and the lint from them
nailed to the lintel), as if in haste, as if
that's an excuse, in anticipation of peace and joy
stealing over you,
not quite able

to believe you're awake, but
it's well past midnight, now - and everything

they told you was true,
it's all really true.

Not literally, though.
But still, not fake! If you look at it
from uncertain point of view.
It's a metaphor, or very like
a metaphor. An allegory
perhaps, or a simile of one,
a parable, possibly - but if so, one so
deep and crazily cruelly right, you'll swear
some fundamentalist pulled wool from your eyes
like a street magician, "See! Presto! Eww." How long
has that wool been there? How many people saw,
and knew? And said nothing. Oh well. At least
you can see it's a miracle. It's gone well
beyond belief by now, and it's all free

for one easy gift! If you act how,
like a methodist? Or no. A method actor.
A real Shatner type. If you can act
like that, right now, I will beam you up,
look at you slightly askance, muse
"Fascinating," and then we can rip
our Starfleet uniform shirts off
and fight! Or,

if you prefer, reason it out in some fucked up
triple-decker chess match. However many we win,
or may lose, you must admit

we're kind of a catch.