Chap. 5

(1)
Glory be to city planners--minding men
To provide a bounty of benches placed to sit
Foot-fading hike-hams; burned-out bums;
And all ease-things filled with comfort-ken
That balm and nicen, break and knit,
Each selving, soothing brutish body numbs.

Puzzling Xavier comes tread-tired to rest
Beneath the feet of bronze-feat that becomes
The grand museum-front; a monument fit
For lengthy leaning-gainst; with breather blessed
To X creation hums.

(2)
Near now to the griffin-guarded vault
He halts and listens long to bee-sounds beside
Him as he over-eyes the wrought of Rodin,
Cragged or silken, set outside or halled
In Cretan chambers, an Age of Bronze supplied
For awing at by wholly humbled man.

“That sorry S.O.B. had better beat it
Before I come and kick him in the can--
I’ll teach him to insult American Pride!”
On X’s right a man was hurling heated
Defenses of his clan.

(3)
Hard by the Gates of Hell he gave his oaths,
A giant of a man with mirrored eyeshades;
The nap of lambs lay all around his neck
And flag-festooned and -cluttered were his clothes:
Stars and stripes unfurled, the size of pie-plates,
Both back and front, with overbold effect.

To check his churl his wife was grasping grim
His leather jacket, labeled AVIREX,
As fast let fly were fulminating tirades:
“I’ll tear you, pinko beatnik, limb from limb!”
His enemy’s response was “What the heck…?”

(4)
The butt of boiling bombast balked and backed;
For what had fire-fresh ire been suddenly stoked?
But X could fix the means of making-mad—
A hat that read, “Bush lied about Iraq,”
And T-shirt tattling, “Dubya is a joke”—
His glib garb a pure political ad.

In tittle-time the shouty hulk had shushed,
Resigning to his role as one who had,
Like Edward at Calais, by wife been yoked;
His quarry had turned tail and meekly mushed
In hasty habit clad.

(5)
Stirring still, our Xavier starts and steps
Himself from ponderous base of posing bronze,
The brazen branglings sparking speedy leave;
A dawdle-bug deserves the bane he keps,
And Fortune favors him who apt-absconds
With body-might and margin ah! to breathe.

In rear-view Xavier sees the giant fling
Another mound of grumblings meant to grieve;
A timely moral: duck the man who dons
Feelings in the form of outer things:
His inscape on his sleeve.

[10:00 / resting / curtal sonnet / buttocks / Rodin Museum]