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Page 149

If you can hear my voice here
without losing sight of the letters and even
the serifs, you, sir or madam (I cannot quite
make you out or make out with you)
are a visionary.

William Blake saw a tree full of angels --
and what's the difference between a seraph
and a serif? When we've lost our angels
(they've fallen, tread the brimstone
with weary feet, walking on fallen arch-
angels), we are in Hell (sans-seraph) or
Helvetica.

I should be ashamed to say I don't see angels
when I look at trees or suns. Not unless
I want to, and why should I? I like leaves.
The angels I see are the conventional ones:
small children, unexpected smiling faces,
anyone who actually listens and understands.

"Angel" means messenger. I suppose a poet is a
messenger -- all this talk of inspiration.
But when I create my message and know
I create what I create, then, in this metaphor,
I am God (and any universe, perhaps, begins
as metaphor), and these, my shiny pages,
stand ranked and filed before me, reams
of angelic quires, at attention, waiting
for me to give them my messages to you.

See my angels? Riffle through them,
and you'll hear the beating of wings.

Note: Helvetica is a sans-serif font – no serifs (or, like Hell, no seraphim). This is Helvetica. This is ordinary Times New Roman hell. Or hellish times. Blank angelic "quires" (ready to carry my messages to you): A quire (thank you for inquiring) is one twentieth of a ream, 24 or 25 sheets. A poet's work is soon gone with the wind, a wind drunk with poetry, thousands of sheets to the wind. Lost reams drift through our dreams.

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