Henry Visits the Gulag

Henry is sent to a distant camp
his scraps burnt on a pyre,
he carries charcoal in sacks;
his was a space in the geographic
a slit to roll onto (rondo)

At night he reads old poetmen
the old is at once a new word
run wa-wu a throng grunt
rare he said, eying rat meat in the larder,
mr. bones is a stirrer
      my lover & I saw baby swans in the city

Some days the pencil is very heavy
and drags words;

they were not happy that Henry was new
diminishing the light & food,
in mr bones heavy old ledger
red overbalanced black

under the newest Theory  Henry
falls into self;
a consideration of the fiction
as the author dies: Road kill--
banging through the back door
a short metamorphoses with ringing curls;
odd that a poet will hold his lover in the darkness
his head filled with cadence.