the assault of the mice

1.
in the time of computers
and talking robots
traps could never end
the assault of the mice:

we are less than we hope
which hangs out before
us in clear, sharp relief

while here the talk is of
mice in orifices of
wall coating the heat
with strange squeaks

they can't hurt us it's true

but the aura is the thing

flitters, flakes of sound
in the walls your blue
eyes tell me news
of a distant death brought
close by technology

history now, here makes
everywhere creepy, with possible
dread always available
in a screen the size of a hand

hope is beside the point
it is merely an orientation point
here we have walls
where electrical wires and
mice find their way
work their way

we talk at angles and curves
hope as orientation
angles and curves

and that's fine, enough,
only too much hope says
'it's not enough'

getting down to angles and curves:

2.
a meteor last night
chipped its way across
the sky in a stutter like your
sudden departure from whim and
the cost of desire lost and pena-
lized but no solid sentence
available let the nailing
down off the hook
where are you going in this last issue of instance
what could give you such pluck in the face of
merriment the size of Crazy Horse's statue
oh no the living isn't worth the aggravation which
is in its way constant and not constant complications the merriment issued from
a scratch in the throat the size of a small seed or nut roughing up the deliv-
ery for a good long time but not forever compare pulses to trajectories
waves to thrusts to tangents and the way becomes provisional per-
haps lit by a small tangent of hope going all the way to the base
of the thing and letting you see some sort of wavering trail
but missing everything outside the light which matters
too of course but not at that moment unless it
suddenly throws itself into the scene
surprising or menacing or perp-
lexing will give no necessary
show the light itself a
condition of lithium
of nature of even
hope for them
lasting