A number of towns –
Canaan Memphis
Palestine Egypt
Lebanon Bethlehem
Damascus, &c. –
odd referents biblical
or something older
thumbing an index  
as well the European
the Indian words
or those confluent  
approximate of
some native tongue
willful misheard
later Anglicised
further removed
scoured by waters
classical aspirations
literary mythic moral
aesthetic political
erotic philosophick
Philadelphia Athens
Parthenon Syracuse
Corinth Clio Delphi
parturiunt montes
a public palimpsest
districts forgotten
neighborhoods
redrawn renamed
PACTA SUNT SERVANDA

some we raised to counter flood
& some we drowned to dam

black fruits the hawthorn
& portrays experience
like the lit rim of a cigarette
rah rah the pencil tip . . .

lord the lord discloses that, yet we  
continue to hunt dumb forme
neuter a greater sense
(illusion, &c.
forsaking all ornament
stop only when surfeit
move like any other – & always away