The Nostril Songs.(Poem)

 
THE NOSTRIL SONGS 
 
   P. Ovidius Naso 
   when banished from Rome 
   remained in the city 
   for days on slave clothing, 
   for weeks in his study, 
   for decades in living noses-- 
 
   Trees register the dog 
 
   and the dog receives the forest 
   as it trots toward the trees 
 
   then the sleeping tiger 
   reaches the dog en masse 
   before the dog reaches the tiger: 
 
   this from the Bengal forests 
   in the upper Kerosene age, 
 
   curry finger-lines in shock fur. 
 
   The woman in the sprigged tapestry 
   who stands up on a sprigged cushion 
   of land in space, is in fact 
 
   nude, but seems richly gowned 
   in quotations from plants and animals 
   modulating her always slightly 
   exposed olfactory heart 
 
   and her absent lover, pivoting 
   on his smaller salt heart 
   floats banner-like above her. 
 
   No stench is infra dog. 
 
   The kingdom of ghosts 
   has two nostril doors 
   like the McDonald's symbol. 
 
   You are summoned to breathe 
   the air of another time 
   that is home, that is desperate, 
   the tinctures, the sachets. 
 
   You yourself are a ghost. 
   If you were there 
   you are still there 
 
   even if you' re alive 
   out in the world of joking. 
 
   For other species, the rhino-kingdom 
   is as enlaved and barbed 
   as the urine stars round all territory, 
 
   as the coke lines of autumn 
   snorting into a truffle-pig's head 
 
   or the nose-gaffed ...