your fluent kingdom

NEW LESSON

Old river the color of rusted iron

you beckon me back before

shell-shocked histoire

humaine (long nightmare drill).  When

we were as flint people in limestone

hideaways, under

the glare of Viper-Vulture

in his ice-eyrie.  The repetition

of trauma exudes a pearl-shell

palimpsest (le Roi

est mort, vive le Roi) –

one slight Gennesaret wave-swell

is laved to Pietà massif, circled by Rome,

lapped by typhoons (of bursting

tears).  We are thirsting,

River, for that fluent kingdom

where Ebionite & Nazarene,

snake-handler & Sioux

shaman – every blue

highway mutt, sadsack has-been –

every humiliated woman, each

weakling sissy-boy

undone by bully

chants of dominance – might teach

a new lesson.  How once that marble

lifted into cloud...

one dove-grey noeud

vitale (breathing AMOR into dead fable).

7.19.16