The Firebird's brain itches for words
She relishes their complex micro-nutrients
With her beak she pulls them apart
Pulling out the root with morbid curiosity
Digesting them like fatty grubs
It is the capacity of the Firebird
To purge away what is unnecessary
To gorge on a rich vocabulary
Allowing her to glide around the globe
Circumscribing it annually
The Eyes of a Wolf
“Wake Up,” growls the Wolf
The depth of the eyes and their brightness
A luminescent feather becomes a quill
One who sees with inky eyes dips a feather
Into a well
Ivan awakes to find the face of the wolf inches away
Growling intently and gazing with his liquid eyes
The voice of the wolf is hunger
One cannot understand the wolf unless
He understands the wolf's hunger
A hunger so deep it is grounded in sadness
His appetite profound long suffering
A man would give his flesh to satiate it
“So you are a wolf and yet you are Irving Layton?
Not perverted like the pornographic wolf
In Little Red Riding Hood
Who is always in bed with grandma
No! More like the wolf in Hesse's Steppenwolf
Presenting the uncivilized aspect of man
His hunger, his vacancy, his need
A wolf that must be contended with
As Satan contended with Death”
At these words the wolf lunges for Ivan's throat
But Ivan's prepared dagger intercepts the wolf
Beneath the chin and the wolf expires
In a violent and bloody baptism
For when the wolf is killed his power is united
With that of the man who killed him
But the wolf can never truly die
The wolf remains a trusted friend of man
He must be fed daily to maintain his strength
Ivan rides the wolf tirelessly in search of the firebird
He journeys far south from his Russian home
At last he comes to to a fork in the trail where a sign reads:
This way to enter the domain of the wise witch
Ivan rides Irving Layton to the witch's door
The wolf prepares Ivan with his poems
For what he will encounter:
“I know this witch and I cannot enter into her domain
You must inquire of the Firebird alone
This Witch: She rides her broomstick so often and well
That one day she may learn to fly it.”
The witch occupies domestic space
Which Ivan can enter but the wolf is not invited
He remains suspended outside the window
Contemplating the witch's conversation with Ivan
On first approaching the witch's domain
Ivan sees the witch through the window
Sailing alone around the room
Upon her broomstick
Ivan encounters her small poodle
Who barks savagely and tugs on Ivan's pants
“Billy Collins!” shouts the witch
“You leave that man alone!
Good Billy Collins
Good Dog”
Ivan stands aghast at what he fears
Must be the actual poet Billy Collins
Turned into a lap dog by the magic witch
His balls suspended in formaldihyde
But no, it is only that the witch
Who is a big Billy Collins fan
Has named her miniature poodle after him
There the poodle stands
Representing the cultured male poodle
Whose only wish is to serve his master
Billy Collins is the perfect dog
Affectionate and benign
Cultured to a feminine sensibility
Without any male sexuality or any bad political habits
As if his politics had been lopped off
As if he had been fixed
Suddenly the poodle smells the wolf waiting outside
He hops upon his master's antique chair and peers
Beyond the translucent glass
Inches away from the face of the wolf
Who intently glares back
Half intending to leap through the glass
But Billy Collins is secure within the witch's domain
The two dogs growl threateningly at each other
On opposite sides of the window pane
“The amazing thing,” says the witch
“Is that there is only one generation between them.”
The Fox condemns the trap not herself
“There is no force more subversive than poetry
And that is why tyrants have always feared it
And sought to suppress it
But not only tyrants, everyone who has a vested interest
In preventing the individual from discovering the truth of his own self
And his own capacities fears the liberating power that resides in poetry”
