1.Blah-blah Walk
Blah-blah walk & I am up & prancing, yes,
but it’s not what you think. The word, it’s true,
releases all the old wild smells, glorious piss
of the previous dog, but then there is the leash,
the choke-chain & the leash. & so I am, I have become,
so-so on walk, the prancing merely Pavlovian.
Blah-blah walk & blah-blah ball — language, you wonder:
how can something scentless be so all so nothing
at once? Once! Once reality fetched itself.
The true masters, they say, can recall.
Mine can only yank. Out there in the sniffery
I find the perfect rotting plum, but he is eager
to get home & afraid of every window when,
in my delirium, I stake out my squat & release.

But after, I am content, am that which delivers the blows, 
                                 still can divine in remnants, remains—
                  lavendercoldmorningwetsquirrelouttorun—
& was not this Oakland once paradise?