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SONNET (AFTER VÍTĚZLAV NEZVAL)
To this brave new world how do you speak about
a question that primarily concerns you?

All told (as says Apollinaire) this obsolete
world makes you snore. A radio under the
vanished Stalin monument tuned to noise,
marks the one fallible point in our new myth.

Guessing that someone is always hungry somewhere.
Who was the old guy stick-in-urinal passed out
that night at the Golden Tiger? The report
doesn’t say, taking up a contrary position.

Dark mutterings of Marx & Spengler under storefront
neon. Naked TV aerials divine rain like table-
tapping, striptease or talk of mathematics.
Disaffected customers rattle their change.