"New information" [ballade]

ballade borrowing lines from Mina Loy


Pocked with personification
the fossil virgin of the skies
waxes and wanes   her elation
the casual eye could surmise
are clouds now principally sighs
congealled overhead the nation?
a wind might dispell tacit lies
according to new information

Cyclones of ecstatic dust
and ashes whirl   in the margin
one lives on a gulp and a crust
while blooms of imagining burgeon
who'd hire an artist as surgeon
prove prone to outré reformation
entrée will be sorrow and sturgeon
according to new information

Somnambulists of adolescent thighs
draped in satirical draperies
recalling the puddles of paradise
while browsing quaint volumes at bakeries
grow silent a spell   lyric quakeries
could serve for a quietude ration
the trouble arises from flakeries
according to new information

Who'd think of the gardens as snakeries
are souls overdue for vacation
the ocean affords sandy nakeries
according to new information



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Phrases that begin each of the poem's three main stanzas are borrowed from Loy's Lunar Baedeker (1923/1958); (see also Lunnar Baedecker)

The Mina Loy Feature in Jacket (Oct. 1998) is worth noting