The New Muse by Paul Hoover

Hang it all, Maxine Chernoff,
The shop notes are curling all over town,
Near the salt sea windows.

The vistas are blowing eastward
And seaweeds grip the town.
We are among the listening

Tragically imbued with error messages;
Nothing is likely to care for us
Or about us either. We are a brown

Part of a landscape that seems to know something—
Yes, we are what it knows,
Figurines of the moment, ceramicists of gloom.

This is the last stanza in praise of you,
Maxine Chernoff. You are a well-knit stanza
Which now I must embody, by thinking of you, dear.