THINGS THAT ARE JULIUS CAESAR’S

Wasn’t it on RAI Radio 3’s Fahrenheit where I heard
Reviews and discussions of books left on trains, although
No one knew if said books were left intentionally or on purpose
To be reviewed and discussed. And I’ve always known that
If I had to have a theme song, it would be John Coltrane’s
“My Favorite Things,” although there’s always “Gallia est omnis
Divisa in partes tres,” or Wilhelm Röntgen’s x-ray of his wife’s
Hand, or this early evening in the southwest portion of the sky,
I watched Jupiter (Zeus) together again with his father,
Saturn (Cronus), although in real life Saturn ate his children,
(Obviously not all of them), as captured by Francisco Goya
On the walls of his house near Madrid, Quinta del Sordo,
One of his Black Paintings, although little is known of
Anyone’s life, especially mine, sandwiched in the history
Books of bloodshed and coffins and swords, the buzzword
Today being buzz, and the watchword today being catch,
And the code word today being code, when plague is
The glue and not the glue, some vague wave I hadn’t
Noticed until it was too late, dust, dust, more dusting,
Living by the word and dying by the word, my favorite fugue.

FUGITIVE FUGUE

The poorhouse has come calling, I thought, or had come
And gone, or will come back again, but not at a mutually-
Agreeable date. And if I could only recollect the full version
Of that dream: Arthur Rimbaud in a conga line or was he
Dazzling everyone with the rumba, the samba, the tango? He’s
Not the only one to stake a claim in the hallowed sounds of
Hallucination, so busy now with ripe fruit that I can’t take
The time to watch the other fruit mature. The pandas who rub
Manure over their fur, the skateboarder lip-synching “Dreams,”
Martha Stewart popping pâté de fruit laced with CBD. When
There’s nothing like a good ultimatum to give me pause, fight or
Flight, etc. The my mistake, no, my mistake, the sorry, no, sorry,
The excuse me, no excuse me, the roustabout dizzy in
The roundabout. Save all of us from vertigo, amen. When I’m
Feeling shelved or, even worse, shelved and never read, an apologist
For the mistaken but not the misinformed. We’ve all been slightly
Disheveled washing the dishes, guests gone, our logos about to be
Pushed off a precipice—and all this time, in all these days, first and
Foremost, last but there may be more, in all these days we may have
Been thinking and even doing something we haven’t ever done before.

Edward Mayes has published poems in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and Best American Poetry. His books include First Language, Juniper Prize (University of Massachusetts Press) and Works and Days, AWP Prize in Poetry (University of Pittsburgh Press). He has recent poems in Poetry, Harvard Review, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Gettysburg Review, and others. He lives in Durham, North Carolina and Cortona, Italy, with his wife, the writer Frances Mayes. He started Bramasole Olive Oil twenty years ago.