Today my pen challenges
for a poem that is not just another scar or bruise
but a true and innocent gaiety.
I know I will only find it
where the given exceeds desire and need,
where senses are freed from all anxiety.
But my pen is an idealist,
an indelible fanatic, a razor-edged puritan, poor thing,
dreaming of calligraphic ecstasy.
Like me
it will have to seem to live
with music of a mordent theme.
fillière 