Aught, no. 2 (1998)

Leo Haber

Sleeping Green Ideas

        "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
              ¾ Noam Chomsky

Furious green ideas sleep colorlessly,
nascent objects of desire emigrate endlessly,
imperious blubbery orders impact breathlessly,
apocryphal onslaughts inundate permanently,

short shrift stumbles silently,
wistful wisteria leaves wallow penitently,
rotund angular sentences reticulate seamlessly,
theaters of the mind hibernate curiously,

hackneyed penultimate thoughts crowd sentimentally,
colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Prelude and Fugue

"Once I started to write the poem,
I wrote the poem," said the poet,
Kenneth Koch, pronounced Coke,
not Kotch or Kach rhyming with
Bach. Fugal language that Johann
Sebastian would have understood
in music, the notes, the words
repeating and turning in upon
themselves with a bit of a twist,
a dog chasing its tail, a whirling
dervish, a carousel, a merry–go–round
of live horses, some faster than
the others, passing the others
on the rim of an unending circle
but never tripping on the heels
of the slower steeds. Once I
started to write the poem, I
wrote the poem, the poem
wrote itself, itself was the poem,
the poem was once written,
I wrote, I write, I will write,
the poem itself.

Copyright © 1998, by the author. All rights reserved.
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