It will continue to break, and soon, sing, elated by time, after the fact, and failure

Island traffic slows to a halt
as screeching gulls reluctant
to lift heavenward

Cobbled streets have the burnished look of stone skulls
sinking like a necropolis of Ugolinos from centuries 
of bewildered tourists stumped in the Eternal City, mulling

Grandmother’s United States washboard
Hangs on the wall as a lesson
From His Terrible Swift Sword

So often I dream of the secrets of satellites, 
and so often I want the moose to step 
from the shadows and reveal his transgressions, 

Black! Black!
A driven man!
Black! Black!

Mr. Yousouf forgot his umbrella
Mr. Yousouf lost his umbrella
Madame Yousouf, someone stole her umbrella

“One never bathes twice in the same stream,” the philosopher Heraclitus used to say. However, the same people always turn up again! They go by, at the same time, gay or sad. You, passers-by in Ravignan Street, I have given you the names of Historical Defuncts! 

Once there was a locomotive so good that it stopped to let pedestrians pass. One day an automobile bumped over its tracks. The engineer whispered into the ear of his steed: “Shouldn’t we take it to law?” “It is young,” said the locomotive, “it doesn’t know.” It contented itself with spitting a little disdainful steam on the out-of-breath “sportsman.” 

I entered timidly: there was an ostrich that was losing its feathers, and, on a pedestal of white stucco, a bronze bird whose plumage was represented by a series of engraved shells. Mr. Abel Hermant or someone like Mr. Abel Hermant appeared as soon as the vestibule was opened.