WHO is as the wise man? and who knoweth the interpretation of a thing?
Margaret’s mother was such. She would be the snake’s milker.

She could read Shakespeare in the original. She left permanent black tracks
Leading off the outbound Stevenson into the Strange and Mysterious Grassland.

You snooze, you lose. I’ll be out back, having a cigarette.
I’ll make a pit stop at the fridge, score a bottle | of Ethiopian beer.

Harar Beer! One BOTTLE, and you can bend a horse shoe straight.
Two, and you can bend it | straight with your mind.

Three bottles, and you can read ancient languages. FOUR,
And you physically turn into a pyramid.

Floating about a quarter | inch off the floor, just barely flapping your wings . . .
I think you’ll find you have no further need of yoga.

And the Chicago street poet Oba | told me I was one
Of the Precision Chromatic Ray Race of people.

That’s good enough for me. So, I spent next day with a couple.
A sexy young couple, responsive, from Harvard . . .

We had a sleepover that night, and when everyone was passed out,
I slipped into the bathroom and read these poems out loud:—

Fully dressed and lying | at full length in a dry bathtub,
5:30 in the morning, I read these poems out loud.