What a puzzle Nick's poems are!

What a puzzle Nick's poems are!
I cannot grasp what he is after.
Marx is easier by far!

Why write, if one is out to bar
All comprehension? Does he hafta?
Marx is easier by far.

If only some new thought would jar
Bourgeois perception, as in Kafka!
But Nick's poems empty puzzles are.

I think I would put him on par
With Cage or Pollack: Which is dafter?
Marx is easier by far.

Under what sectarian star
Was he begat? What gnomic laughter
Twists those poems which puzzles are?

Ah me! I'll never know. A for-
Eign joke, a filial disaster!
God! Such puzzles Nick's poems are!
Marx is easier--by far!

---Nicholas Gordon