The Assembly of the Originals Looks Like a Landfill Ready to be Covered Over

My shop practice poems are written on gaskets
Comments on commerce, the back of receipts
My effusions on food on strawberry baskets
Thoughts that come in the night are scribbled on sheets.

Mumblings on babies on diapers dashed off
Fancies on fishing on boxes of hooks
Odes to old buildings on wall-board that's bashed off
Belles-lettres critiques on the wrappers of books

Mechanical marvels worked out on oil wipers
I.O.U.s for some help on the door of the barn
Notes about reptiles on shed skins of vipers
Or in Inca-style knots in a quipu of yarn.

I sully the phone book while getting a number.
Doggerel gets to be scrimshawed on bones.
Platitudes plastered on plaques of old lumber,
And it's no shock to me that there's sermons in stones.

Mathematical musings on cosines and tangents
As additional entries in tables of logs
And rattling around in the scrapmetal plangent
An occasional whimsey on levers and cogs

On walks in the woods, there may occur jingles
Committed to birch bark that curls up in bends.
And nothing is better than weather-worn shingles
For peans of praise for our fine feathered friends.

To honor Doc Willard, I enter all weighings
On e’en-numbered pages of neat little books
In willing accord with one of his sayings
On pernicious habits of chemists and cooks.

Petrology records are carved into marble,
Geological notes on a slateboard, with chalk.
And just to prevent any recording garble,
Directions detailed on the sleeve of my smock.