Wednesday, April 18, 2018

The Age of Heroes

Unrolled, the ball of twine will reach from here

To Sunday next, maybe a little past,
As strong as faith, and supple. Place such string
In hands like yours, you could subvert a world
Of passageways. The monster has to smell
Both us and exit. That’s a lot to ask
Of demi-men and semi-livestock, see?
Somewhere along the way it will sense grass
Or wind on open water, then forget
Its murderous intentions. Clover makes
It sleepy; birdsong, and it drops its guard.
You, with a chunk of rope, a .44,
And proper shoes, could be back home for tea.

And then what? When the monster has been foiled,
The maiden slaked and handed back to dad
To foist her by-blow on a little prince,
The whitecaps braved, the Welcome Home endured,
All speeches, leis, and fatty bullock thighs,
We’ll frame your twine and hang it where Aunt Vi,
The Tutor, and your nubile cousin Daph
Can hardly miss it. What then? There are new
Monsters, of course, but, really, they’re not much
But bags of bone and teeth: blood is a bore,
Philately in person, so to speak.

Friday, April 13, 2018

Against the Wall

All that remains, the beasts having declined,
Is chum and chow, the wrinkles on one's feet
Smoothed by contraction, the lively little girls
Gone blonde from red, then white from blonde, at last
Telling lies of yore and splendiferous
Kindergarten snacks. It was a bad time.
We ate our ration cards. We had for sex
A kind of contempt. I saw a skeleton
Banging another up against the wall
And was not tempted. When our hetman sought
My vote for alderman, I told him, Once
I rode a horse across an undulate
And singing field, which he wrote down as Yes.

Monday, April 09, 2018

Before the Prologue

They rode on palfreys or on mules. He said,

It’s April. When it’s April …showers. None
Impelled, he let them fall asleep, to prompt
Them further, with a look at cherry trees
And battlements and rivers full of geese.
Remember March? he asked. It was so dry–
So how dry was it?
 asked a tubby priest,
Greatly indulged. Not quite the point. He thought
About the robin on a hawthorn branch,
Its breast as red as Christes blood, now dried
And efficacious only by a hymn.
He had no hymns, the diplomat, but stories
Flowed out by art arterial and blessed.

Thursday, April 05, 2018

Good Cheer & Local Color

There’s been an incident at 5th and 6th
And 73rd and 58th and Elm.
I see dead people everywhere, except
On S. Lipan and Penny Lane and Stout.
I don’t know why. Rellenos on the wind,
The sound of magic flutes, the frail red duff,
Oranges and lemons: still the bones pile up
Just above Congress Park, on Ruby Hill,
And where the Carpet Warehouse has been closed.
Come home tonight. I found some bottles of
Whatever could be bottled up. Not these,
However emptied out the scuffed-up rooms,
Annoyed to be anonymous. Here come
The incidents of Christmas Past passant.