"The Tour Guide"

1. Introibo


let us go into then

the Great Hall of Tickets

and select slim bits for our flypaper postcards

dodging the local

eschewing the quartier and

choosing instead

distant topologies of sight and site


2. Calakmul

the tour Day Two

or perhaps One it depends on

the way that time turns its page

backward or forward

backward goes actually laterally

way over into left field or right

where the pop flies arc bounce and bump against

the ball court at Calakmul

to get there drive way down from Detroit

turn left at Xpuhil

you can’t miss it


3. Rome

Tour Guide: Please don’t touch

please don’t touch the baldacchino

or any of the putti

although they look ethereal

in their gilded mirth

actually they are just posing

taking a break from their heavy duty day job up above

the bamboozling Baedeker comments on the whole shebang

the losing feathered warrior

Pakal’s pawn seed-drugged

fingers numbed

catapults to St. Peter’s dome

let’s follow him closely one by one

do not delay

squeezing through Michelangelo’s shells

up to the lantern all crowded round

you’ll get a great view

looking on the imperial urb

the bedizened warrior tumbles down

falls into a king-sized Serta ™ bed

and cruises to the next port call

at Cefalu


4. Key West

over there, the little shoebox building

smeared grey flaking stucco

you would pass it beer in hand never a glance back

lo it was the home of Ponce de Leon

setting foot on the Isle of Bones his minions crafted

this small palace set among the palms

golden plates adorned the roof

scaring the pelicans not to mention the F16s vaulting overhead


5. Nag Hammadi

look

that postage stamp parchment shred

lying in the garage mechanic’s toolshed

of the Nag Hammadi Auto Repair Shop

the faint upside down angled zigzag T

it is the middle name of



would you have known if I had not told you it was so?