DEI ABBACO

 there is a barrel

 each of its ends being
 two bracci in diameter
 the diameter at its bung
 is two and a quarter bracci
 and halfway between bung and end plate
 it is two and two ninths bracci
 the barrel is two bracci long
 and by adding two wheels
 the barrel might become a baroccio
 and its pilot become barocciaio

 the dog

 it was a fine day at the beach
 sand / water / strange and meandering wanderers
 animals unknown to dull eyes

 gulls counting clouds

 but just past dusk
 a being appeared
 carrying two wheels
 a hand-drill
 an axle and a blanket
 and it approached the heavy oak barrel
 which had washed ashore

 after the wheels and blanket
 had been installed
 a dog approached
 and seeing the dog
 the being said in a grand voice

 come here
 so i can hit you better

 but the dog turned its face
 and showed then
 a small crab clinging to its cheek
 with a pincer

 good then
 said the being
 then you know what i am up against

 this pissing in the wind
 has become too baroque
 neither myrtle
 nor laurel
 but a tiled and tilted gnarl

 a verruca mainoumenos

 idealism's strange proposition
 said the being
 is this dirt here
 all around us

 a barbelo
 anything
 a crazy forgotten
 remembered thing
 an abacus whose twisted
 counting pearls
 might each be
 a burning peregrinus

 some values
 which split
 and then rejoin in other forms
 other names
 other values

 a dynamics
 cynically mimicking
 a theory

 (the dog scratches itself emphatically)