Designs on the Air

Irrelevant as blackwork,
These unlyrical lyrics,
Physically electric,

Mentally lampblack and soot,
Grime on pulped, boiled, and pressed rags
Of others’ discarded thoughts,

Stamping their geometries,
Their fleur-de-lis-like pattens,
As if patterns could make poems,

What’s there left to do with them?
A god by a leafless tree,
An abstract tangle of lines

With a jar at the center,
Mad satyrs and maenads,
Nothing but decoration—

They might be interesting
In a world without stories,
Music, or song. They might be.