Hopalong Cassidy keeps hoppin' along in Fontegaia...

19

 
August now, the month of Palio.
The U-turn of those tender feet
quattropasso in Siena street -
echo of an old paint's hollow

 
thundering.  Imago of Everytown,
a rooster crest's unquenchable desire -
your nippled ring a roaring hemisphere,
rage welded into ceremony (such loco

 
renown).  Motionless in motion, this
parade of silks and garlands round
an altar green with laurel... Greyhound
Pastor!  Ex cathedra Pegasus!  Thus

 
Siena signs her crepuscule of history
and wills it bent (as testament)
into a duplex wreath : nine sent
skittering on horizontal - only

 
a rust-encrusted tenth (last call)
sounds (contrapuntal) from the tall
bell-tower.  Armillary, spherical...
a gyroscope.  Reverberant sundial.

 
And all we know is this double-ply
of blazoned passio, importunate light.
Bands of limestoned spectators
in the Campo (goddesses, mortal) sigh

 
as one toward yon singular suspense,
forevermore.  Deep in their scalloped
bosom of clay, rocked in a tempest
in Arcady - smiling Augustan-Etruscans.