Coolidge's embrace of the sonnet form - a continuation of the project begun in On the Nameways and Alien Tatters - is a gemlike amalgam of narrative urge, wacky name-dropping, and pure visuality. Coolidge's legendary proliferation - as many as 10 sonnets in a single day - marries the stunning variety of his intellect, on the mountaintop of formal inquiry.
LIBRARY OF HAY
So slow death oft the onyx dolls
each in its own lab colors rollicking encores
who's there? do you want your museum
room infiltrated? only the singing parts
terrible loss of air raid powder
entanglements poled on kapok
the last to be heard? this ploy of dolls
irradiated heads and curls of coffin wood
death is always plural here? stolid
anyway someway still enters the frontway
through the water door to Manikin Lake
the throttles held down there you went to
hair school against my wisdom thus the
remnants spelled out there then coded there
ARCANE HEMISPHERES
Something is wrong with the literature of this blood
maybe a tool baron? help must be brought
to light this legend take the taxis away
clear the blocks I will have all flesh riven
gestural lengths of shadow and echo bulk
the Armbruster is the name of the monster this time
but I don't anymore take it that anything!
the vestibules beyond the outer rooms will tell the tale
Uncle Cecropio you may dust my broom
palest crystal master what is dead must remain
beyond the alternate fleshlike regions let it go
Artoo will find us out heard a cry in the mirror
located in the funnies but so graceless in class
the whole night shines a brass hole in my tongue