Bruce Covey

 

77

A mass of people—who would have believed!
Barricuda up “gee, knob” they (are)
I was sitting on a truck
The company of a beautiful unknown, only minutes from the Spanish
I will wait; meanwhile we can both stare at your mistress
But yet it seems if one could take her knees
I also thought that I saw what had appealed to me
Was beginning. She would have to learn to listen to music
Whom I’ve so recently met—a fragment of the universe
Pages of Keats (Endymion) This side of the cluck
I have so many colors—if you’d seen
Dey am heat seekin, am deys nock?
And there was the sky with, piercing it a good ways
Which can never be undone
One wish may hide another. And one person’s reputation may hide
Well then, I’ll try to be with you again!
And space is about stopping
As lost mints, —howl, sea! The barrow of fulgurating
Totally dependent on the social contract
That is what it is like!

Written on the 2^nd anniversary of his death at the age of 77, “77” is an elegy for Kenneth Koch composed of one line each from page 77 of 20 of his books.