Etude II

ETUDE Il

First out of need the usage starts.

But what of oboes? Does the reed

Require fulfillment, know some need

Inherent in its fitfulness?

Or is the tone existent, lost

Without the slim black tube to voice

Its melancholy muse?

Thus choice

Flits freely, deftly osculates

The shaping lip, and speculates

Upon the values of mankind:

Twelve vagrant weavings of the mind,

Eight necessary teeth which fail.

O send some shy banality

To scourge the fundamental three.

They bind and gib the universe

Cross-questioned in prosaic verse.

Release some burst of counterpoint

In painful flight of vital glee

So absolute in aimless grace

As to dissolve urbanity.