IN STARLIGHT and in the hum of typing I admit it was I.

I admit it was I who erased the posters in the mean street and

it was I who 'found' the body. It was I

who 'discovered' the plant and I who named it imperially

after my own self. Then I ironed out the language and I

showed my work in the cruddy journals of the time.

It is not the case that wax had dripped upon the pillow;

this was not the sign. But it is that I invested public moneys

in a variant distance off the shore in which the lighthouse

seemed a tallow stick. I did indeed compose the philosophy

and did so in broad daylight, bearing its illegible whips.

In this way I aroused complexity in myriad roses—oh!

pity the wild geranium and the dense

blazing star ... But to return to that night, indeed it was I

who witnessed the overwhelming meat and precedence

of summer as it received one into a vexed relation

with the cooling effects of trees. It was I who circulated

the yellow memo and I who poisoned the well. And I established

the literature, knowing full well the problems of the real world

to a less real one exquisitely apply. It was thus I of whom it was said

she availed of little caution. I came to surmise on the porch of autumn

with citrus discs and beads of solar attrition. I was akimbo,

I was inclined to fly. A flicker of madness. I had achieved

my historic high. And I knew just enough

to be toxic to the earth. In the raw bar of moonlight

I projected my one feeling which littered the street and mobilized

dawn and the sun came down its high metaphor and distended

the body's odor and it was I who said something is rotten

in the state ... for in such palaces as these one is armed with barbs

to the teeth ... And yes,

I darkened the web and I defrauded the

publican and on stormy nights I withheld from classification

those very secrets which pierce the hearts of young historians.

Indeed it was I to whom it was said SLOW. THE. FUCK. DOWN.

And I did not.

I lived in directionless desire. Intransigent. Bullish. I ventured out

in viral fields. And I rode my bad scooter which killed the coral reef.

I withdrew my affections which bolstered certain militias.

And I suffered publicly excesses of feeling

which eliminated the most well-bred of my rivals.

It was under these circumstances that I came to speak for

the republic. And this is in the hot sun which burned to a cinder

the very thing I sought to make you forget and forget

you have, drinking the choicest of my ales. And yet

I have done only some of what I could do to secure my freedom.

Of nuance I am the consequent animal. Unsubtle,

I live in intricacies of the obvious. Into which I permit

your entry. For indeed, yes, over this too

I maintain a modicum of power.