I Don't Really Fear

I don't really fear for the death of my entrails
and the death of my nose and those of my bones 
I don't really fear the mosquito wings pale
who's baptized Raymond whose father's called Queneau

I don't really fear where the book goes in detail
along the docks through offices growth and ennui
I don't really fear myself who writes the tale
and distills death down into some poetry 

I don't really fear The night flows softly forth
between the ornery cracks in death's eyelids
The soft night caresses gingerly
with honeyed meridians poles south and north

I don't really fear night I fear not this rest
absolute That must also exist heavy like lead
dry also like lava black like sky's depths highest
deaf also like beggars bleating by a bridgehead

I am afraid of misfortune mourning sufferance 
and the agony jinx and excess of absence
I am afraid of the girth where lies the malady
And the time and space for soul's mischief to be free

But I don't fear much that lugubrious imbecile
who will come to pluck me up with its sharp toothpick
then beat will I be by its eye vaguely placid
all my courage sapped by the vermin so quick

One day I'll sing of Ulysses and Achilles 
of Aeneas or of Don Quixote or Panza
One day I'll sing of gladness and tranquilities
the pleasures of the peach or the peace of villas 

Today so palled as the hour which rolls near
turning like an old nag all around the clock face
with a thousand excuses in its skull -- sphere --  
to whisper forth the plaintive song of nothingness