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This poem is taken from PN Review 162, Volume 31 Number 4, March - April 2005.

Marienbad 1814 Christopher Middleton

A lion, aha, has to have broken loose;
    A boy, he puffs his cheeks; he fingers
Now a flute; picks out a tune,
    With singular glides, while at the fair
(Lodged overnight, for Sunday show)
    An image, advertising fright,
A lion loose, everyone aghast -
    Is not the same as those hussars
Of 1806; we still pick out the marks
    Of gun-butts grooving our front door.

What a porridge! Speak of it
    To nobody. A complex gestates,
Makings of a star, in secret snowballing
    Spacious dusts. Meanwhile Faustus ;
Done with, sundry loving metamorphoses;
    To Hafiz now the steeps, a distinct
...


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