Pshh, Pshh

BANG! BANG!

Honor beyond reaching for

and after all these years of quoting Falstaff,

saying, Pshh, Pshh, spittle coming

from my mouth on friends' floors,

I know something of what he was trying to say

pulling the bottle of wine from his holster.

Humbled comes next, by your friends.

Graced by Yanos Pilinszky's splinters,

your spikes in my heart

washed into the ancient patina

of stone. Honor beyond reaching,

unlike Jeffersonian reason. The eschaton

mocks Newton and Rousseau,

waving banners raised by Blake.

Blood-pumping. Blood-pumping.

Jim

28 June 2019