Policemen patroling fear in force suffering nightmares of wet street city night reflections of rights. Lawyers pacing nervously indexed variables of law in search of confirmation suffering nightmares set in arid deserts of crude rocks incomprehensibly balancing finely wrought iron. Nobody should be frightened to spit on walls. We might be frightened of night blackness. Body odor, according to tests on the flesh of neurotic mice, might cause cancer. We might be frightened of uncontrolled air blowing loose heads of hair. We might be frightened of insects and of animals that live in forests. We might be frightened of falling water, stars, and the color of the sky. We aren’t frightened of chemical correctives in aeorosol cans. We aren’t frightened of DDT, of BHT, of phosphate detergents. We aren’t frightened of believing in finite balances, equations with two variables to describe the world, and of enforcing them. We want to be frightened of guns and laws. We are frightened of imagined beings who eat light. We are frightened of oceans corroding edges dispersing iron resolutions to modulate the beat of hearts. Nobody should be frightened to spit on walls. City streets collect fear as dust. Urine and spilt beer puddle with broken glass as arguments tangle in laundries and straight-jackets sift combustion exhausts for lost identities. The rain has become anemic someplaces, trying to wash the air.
October 1971