of the clay peoples

PEACOCK’S EYE

Path P stretch in six directions

out of Cairo, Huck,

sez Jim – any way you look.

One of them north-south junctions,

I reckon.  There was a labyrinth

of red clay trenches –

dead men in its clenches

like flies hung in a spider’s tent

– heavy that clay, so heavy!

Like the bottom of the sea.

How could a little child be

dancing in such dismal gravy?

She’s Pueblo, of the clay peoples;

they put away wrath before

the sun go down, f’sure.

Lookee there.  & through the peephole

of his fingertips I saw (obscurely

as that garden of Sheba)

a lightning pathway – Sun-Ra

threshing floor – arisen merrily

from ripened Flanders wheat (so

melancholy).  Like Van Gogh

seized with a fury-glow

of happiness... Persephone?  O

yes!  Threading her crane-dance

through a peacock’s eye –

purple Hagia Sophia’s

woolly poncho-swirl (at cave-entrance).

5.24.16