Night Essay
A tired man struggles
to hint about the death
of poems in his time
after work and dinner.
The effort produces signs
of exhaustion,
with irony about self
and other depletions.
You, Reader of Puzzles,
quickly catch a rare
breath of resolve.
That’s aesthetic pleasure.
The challenge of recording
one’s work in a logbook
avoids the central tendency
to start talking politics.
When the art of government
is the Lie,
embarrassed by my rage,
I fulfill my repression.
A nightmare man,
wrapped around a skeleton, sinks
into shadowed grounds.
Above a seminary’s steep roofs,
full summer boughs swirl
with the wind, shushing.