Code man in black mac / Liffey:

According to Joyce
the Coffin lay in its bier
& the mourners knelt
L. Bloom
C. P. M’Coy,
Dash Mc’Intosh
& several others
I don’t recall who was
The Figure
Standing just by
Over there
Now gone
Mistaken for name of the figure
The boy turned man
O the boy turned man at the grave sight
The thirteenth mourner
& as Joyce puts it
Mistaken for a stranger
But disappears
Of a course to become judged in his black mackintosh funereal attire
Ever muted
By a stoppage in prayer
& Paddy Dignam’s poor corpse
The word benign like the divine
& him bursting
& us so benign
Oddly dimpled bowler
Mentioned on the head of a mourner
Standing aback of us
Entirely of a nature to disappear
Mourner of the other 12
At the plot of
Poor Dignam
& as I said Joyce said
Paddy Dignam
His legacy of
Good humor
A bent elbow for the fun
Bon mots just for the world
The grave
The one in it
No balm like a black balm
A balm so sweet
Of choices
Strategically arranged
A life steered through
& around
Navigable they want us to believe
And down along the sweet flowing Liffey
The crones squawk
Indefinably
Notions of flowing
Of hair by the river
A woman’sssssSssSSsSSssss long strands
Same as desire
So cunning
Languor of the siren’sssssSS sSsSS Ss SSSSsssss
Eternal flesh
No longer a boy
A man now
Per chance transformed
To invisibility
O black in his black macintosh
No longer
A boy
I’ve a rare bone to pick with the river Liffey
From which
It is clear
All speech flows in the world
The heart-stopped-world
Spoken to
The bone-yard-world
Flowed through
By a river
The bone-yard-tune
Creeping under
The stranger’s black mackintosh
Like a desire he detests quenching
Out of the grave’s cusp of loam
Came Liffey
A moment in it
Both grave & Liffey
Some shuddering belch of an “Excuse me,
Are you in there?”
If
& when

Not Even Our Shadows Will Follow Us

Iloveyou, meaning thiscanary has beenourluck;
meaning we both love themusicplaying inmyhead.
Iloveyou,meaning I hope you neversuffer,asIhave,
for being charmed; meaning wash&choplove’s
onions,cryasyoulaugh.Iloveyou, meaning canaries
tire of their own mimicreflections; we ignore them,
telling each other Don’t worry, it’s no ta sign. Blue,
meaning “awkward:” I shaved this canary for you.
Joke,meaning“concerned:”I spoofed the canaries
foryou.Canary,meaningflight;meaningyouwashed
thisplumhopingforone longsweetriff.It lasted a
moment. It lasted like a monument, bigasCharlie
“thebird”Parker. It glistered when I bit into it for your
sake. It was myself, my sweet necrotic voice I heard
singing intheback ofyourthroat. Ohbaby,Iloveyou,
meaning do you know this canary? Oh baby, Iloveyou,
meaningI’llbeyourcanary, my wings bright, gaudy
as anything toofamiliar,and disappear into thinair.
Ohbaby,Iloveyou, meaning disappear withme,it’s
thateasy, notevenourshadowswillfollowus.

Icarus Fallen to a City's Limit

The sun proclaimeth its love for the angle
At which it is seen. The moment I fell: O! strange
&lovelystrange&lovelyirregularities.
Onefragmentfrom. Is like another. A city
thus defined determines its grandeur.
Looking into a pond or mirror is equivalent to:
I shaped ideas.I paused to check my balance.
If I fell It wasn’t unwittingly. The scene upended
the writing. Only this sense of a shift in perspective:
outcome/delay. As I looked on it swept past me
whose face was a taxi cab. Thepoemabout
Lenin was an anvil he detested reading.