Diagnosis

Civilized soft accents –
gently cultivated, stressed
no more or less
than necessary to convey
assent to some neat reasonably
candid and considered
cadenced and articulate array

of well-wrought thought –
a sweet and fine trajectory
of mind, a sort of lilting
philosophic roundelay –
in which agreeable agreed-upon
assumptions might, here, graciously
be given sway – caught,

and offered, carefully, of course;
at their most generatively
illuminating high points: brushed
with modesty, anointed
with a charming touch of shyness:
quietly achieving, and then
leaving in a hush: penseroso –

not allegro – never so
unduly weighted that a gasp
occur, or breath be ‘bated:
all in homage to the apropos –
the powerful self-evident
belief that sense prevails
and nothing need arrest one from

its flow: indeed, that death itself
was, in its bold distasteful
crudeness, best kept well
outside the show –
accorded some short cordial
passing nod, perhaps.
Diagnosis: imminent collapse.

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