The Loser

Before then the city will be wasted utterly,

for he has fallen who defended it-11aD

Not quite sublimed in this,

the ample South that rounds

our imaged selves this year,

irregular and sere,

sir, we fall quiet. Sounds

shape the well we kiss.

Where have we come from

to keep such company

and easy innocence,

sharing the Greek pretense

of gifts, the clement sea,

dreams' propagation?

Whose child are you, made glad

by nothing you can touch,

or in the mind confess?

Who thinks of love the less,

mistaken overmuch

by wars we never had?

The changeling you are fares

less well and happy than

the semblance we avoid.

That anagoge alloyed

unmans in you the man

fair copies can't repair.

Cannot your verses win

your world back into view

again until each scans?

Your Grandfather, his lands,

recede like tides from you,

high now and dry within.

Kentucky, Arkansas,

the bluffs that serrulate

what the red clay retains

of density with veins

blue as today the slate

Carolina sky, see-saw

in your misprision: now

archaic, somehow trite.

There is nothing close

enough to lend repose

or pity or delight,

the states have fallen so.

Your name and passion fail.

All histories lie rife,

your speaking incompletion.

Myself as guilty con

this poem of your life:

alike, unbeautiful.