88 Sonnets: Poems

Coolidge's embrace of the sonnet form - a continuation of the project begun in On the Nameways and Alien Tatters - is a gemlike amalgam of narrative urge, wacky name-dropping, and pure visuality. Coolidge's legendary proliferation - as many as 10 sonnets in a single day - marries the stunning variety of his intellect, on the mountaintop of formal inquiry.

LIBRARY OF HAY

So slow death oft the onyx dolls

each in its own lab colors rollicking encores

who's there? do you want your museum

room infiltrated? only the singing parts

terrible loss of air raid powder

entanglements poled on kapok

the last to be heard? this ploy of dolls

irradiated heads and curls of coffin wood

death is always plural here? stolid

anyway someway still enters the frontway

through the water door to Manikin Lake

the throttles held down there you went to

hair school against my wisdom thus the

remnants spelled out there then coded there

ARCANE HEMISPHERES

Something is wrong with the literature of this blood

maybe a tool baron? help must be brought

to light this legend take the taxis away

clear the blocks I will have all flesh riven

gestural lengths of shadow and echo bulk

the Armbruster is the name of the monster this time

but I don't anymore take it that anything

the vestibules beyond the outer rooms will tell the tale

Uncle Cecropio you may dust my broom

palest crystal master what is dead must remain

beyond the alternate fleshlike regions let it go

Artoo will find us out heard a cry in the mirror

located in the funnies but so graceless in class

the whole night shines a brass hole in my tongue