Ein Heldenleben

How can dust be a hero to itself,
how can paint remain without color,
how can the frame not frame anything,

confine the subject, the object,
the obstruction, the passage?
Sidewalk became elevator

which ran north and south,
east and west, friend and pest.
Robinson lit a cigarette

while the de Koonings expounded
and expanded on their theories
which were trapped in Manhattan,

tantamount to treason, tall, tasteless.
Robinson finally exhaled a puff of smoke,
the smoke acknowledged his circumvented existence.

With one hand absconded in his trouser pockets,
the other hand wielding a sword against the Visigoths,
Robinson and his wife took the subway home.