That Pound should from the castle walls on high
weight his Cantos with bricks,
and with great gusto and abandon hurl these gems
into the fosse
so that the Philistines encamped and overnight drawn nigh
should fall prey to such childish tricks
and thinking this some halva fit for soldier food, feed it to them,
and they die, ’tis no great loss.
That these dense tomes of senseless stringing symbol chains
should be enshrined as modernism’s best,
and critics and professors fawn the same on them as free wine and cheese
is no real surprise,
so that the Philistines, tuitions and subscriptions paid in full,
should sit in vapid classrooms taking tests,
and still end up ensnared in culture’s swamps, and s’il vous plaît,
can parrot with enthusiasm, lies.
That Pound should further speak in tongues no longer taught
to weave cryptographers into a funk,
and with a sense of mystery turn A from B to C and back
without tremble or pause
so that the Philistines could say with half a chance of wit, “Fear not!”
and should some gray stranger on a train, sans trunk,
approach quoting the Cantos, place a gun against their back
and shoot them, naming Poetry the cause,
for such things to transpire, would I …
19 May 2005
