EX UNGUE LEONEM

You think you are reading these words,
that on paper you are seeing these marks

for how and why like a moth your worries
steer bibulous–beneath weary, eyesore

light where you think you are sitting, smoking,
thinking for the moment that you, Mr. Bones–

chalk-dry, incurable, phlemagtic are roiling,
brabbling, braining, thinking you are nowhere–

Henry again, blue-capped, bird-like, anemious
in the mouth of the rat: the sycophantic, servile,

groveling protector of dead, erstwhile books
wherein Ex ungue leonem., we may judge

the lion from its annelidous claw: I wake
and watch the repugnant pugilist of mirrors,

false encyclopedias, unknown planets,
their prophesies, their pyramids, their

playing cards, in the whiteness
of leprosy, Mon siège est fait.