Doily at the nose

[Roy Hobbs]

It has come to me, perhaps from Levana
in a dream-- that 'doily at a nose' is
ok.

Just so, a firecraker about to explode
stuck in the left nostril.

Levana said, "Nothing in a poem can be
doubted because it's all lies anyway."

Poetry has no truth function, just as it
has no teaching function. DeQuincey-- in
his essay, "Didactic Poetry."

Levana had me. "Mister Hobbes. I far more
enjoy your poem about General Patton build-
ing barges for Cleopatra than the one where
he gives up command of the Third Army.

... and the one about the Orient Express
going through Canada, Vancouver to Nova
Scotia than the poem about Agatha's killers."

... and Emerson wrote nasty letters to Emily
Dickinson, and that Dr. Johnson revealed his
"amorous' propensities to his mother rather
than to David Garrick.

Veridical necessity is the last necessity
required from a poem-- but Levana and I have
a 'thing,' so it was natural that she come to
me and excuse my 'doily.'

And Levana always dresses in blue when she's
serious--

"En lieu de bleu, dame, vous vestez vert."

rh