(Sonnet as Keynote to WS) br br The stout man puffs on his Havana cigar br And picks canary chords on his blue guitar, br Fashions flawed words and spindrift sounds br Into day-glow verbs and glass-blown nouns. br How much the notion of a supreme fiction br Derives from bric-a-brac and spiffy diction br None knows. Say his thickest absolutes br Derive from blue rotundities of fruits: br His crispest jugglery performs the feat br Of hardening stealthy points into concrete br Trombones, sausage-makers, cattle skulls, br And pettifogging buds. His monocle's br Univocal, a prop that lets him see br Glories in pewter, and mere poetry. br br br (Published in The Wallace Stevens Journal, Fall 2005. Vol.29. No.2 p.