About What Runs Away

To think that Spinoza died polishing eyeglasses.
That Blake got tired at a printer's shop
waiting for that day's conversation with the angels.
That just to live Baudelaire humiliated before his mother.
That Rimbaud was silenced by Rimbaud
so that his candor talked to me about literature.
As if something else were possible other than inventing
the shape of the shapeless before others
and collecting a salary. How persuaded he is
of the improbable. These words
have built up congresses and symposia,
and prestiges and fames perhaps more lasting.
And in the centre, the wanderer of this wordly matter,
that wild brightness because of a disguise,
or mockery or to escape even farther
from the stubborn intent, has also invented
these creatures, he surely
laughs from the end of the room.
Or contemplates its simulation with piety.