the Winter King (a mummer's play)

BLUE LIGHTNING

Hobo, sprawled among November reeds,

cattails.  His scattered bones

ache on jagged edges.

A chill is in the sky.  Light feeds

the icing-over swamp, the acid-

green vomit (absinthe

effigy of spring).  A plinth

of plastic raft supports his dream-kid,

Henry Hawkeye – duffed.  In mummer’s rags

of scruffy black, to match

his sullen rage (a match

is all it takes).  Here comes Antigone’s

antagonist... here comes Creon, Jason...

Here comes Le Grand K

himself, all brassy

mass and armored mirror – one

half bull, the other carny barker

in a cream straw hat.

Just look at that!

He laughs, he sneers, he boasts, he barks

surrounded by his bulky thugs,

stiletto-dames –

No Shame in Crimes

his badge declares (pinned with slugs

to his forehead).  The plastic raft

quivers to his stomp.

This is gonna be a romp,

he crows, & circles Henry, fore

                   *

& aft.  Wispy, cloudy, quiet Henry’s

cornered.  By the water.

No weapon (though an otter

peeks up near the scrim).  He’s

holding only a tiny pocket mirror,

which he flecks upward

toward the pale sun.  Hard

to say what will come next.  Your

ghost dance, Hobo, flickers photons

like Planck’s constant

from an old field tent –

where photos of Kennedy, Abe Lincoln,

Martin Luther King hang, haunted (black

& white).  The King

is dead, long live the King,

Ave Maria, Henry whispers back.

& suddenly a mass of flame pours out

like pale blue lightning

from a Chartres ceiling

down upon a maze, blazing partout

across the center of the raft.  Truth

is our Law, O shallow

prince – our commonweal.

She rules, & will spring forth

again – like that torch-bearing Liberty

all clothed in copper green

welcoming everyone...

So Hobo saw.  The raft was empty.

11.27.18