cyclope kit for the blinded artist

on a poem by Robert Creeley

Agreement. But first tell me for once and all what’s left to agree on.
A reason. Yes the argument. An argument just as valid as none,
as I have been sentenced from womb to womb to live without the luxury of reason.
A painter, madam, would have portraid the suitcase I’m sitting on,
able, one eye closed, to see more clear with the other the creased napkin,
a certain amount of luggage streaming from it, shades, volumes, frames and colors
and quite often, but not unpleasant for that reason, darkness.
But a painter of prefab? From landscapes I see nothing else but the unending silhouette.
It has a smell of dust. A copyist could frame it, from a photograph,
and people with experience for argument again as such may frame that.
It lacks the smell of dust.
These kids, cute and wealthy, apparently have no idea of the thing I’ve been sitting on. A goddamn suitcase goddammit,
The so often stolen suitcase.
Again not too much of an argument is left,
apart from a certain amount of steps, shadows, the gold, a smell of dust.