BELLOW

A dangling mensch
wants to off a giant
building in Chicago
hauling its cargo
of optimistic goods
to mask his identity
for a better one,
Saul seeking to be
a spirit
beyond his flesh
Peter paying Paul
for the business
and busyness 
of "American Life"
seen in a lobby
of a bigger than life
passing regular
hour jobs and Jobs
meeting at luncheon
in hotels with good company
at a man's manifest destiny
to accompany fate, value,
shares to share marginally
in words and worlds
of war, class suffering
and envy making it seem
absurd and madness
is a daily existence routine
if not for the gift
of a poet's prophecies
who reflects on the steps
of the university
lounging at the art
of fiction
with Arnold's sense
of Greek thought
and Hebraic scholarship
in his imagined faculty
and Capital if only
to exchange letters,
ideas,dissatsfaction,
confession, depression,
at the scrivener's trade,
a myth maker 
word painter
and his brother's keeper
since Cain and Caliban
ran away
from themselves.