2.17.2020

snowflakes on Presidents' Day





SPLINTER-WORD

George III was buried yesterday
200 years ago.
The mad King Bluster-Tyro
pressed New England into granite liberty.

Ceremonies of the royal tomb
reverberate across a nation
scarred by assassination.
Abraham, Jack… William, Jim…

framed by wide wings of Martin
(& Bobby too).  They stand
elongate, with palm frond –
archangels in a nave-cavern

of fluted oaks.  Stone tears well
from republican cenotaphs
when that Ant-Leader laughs
who foments red-black wars (from home

to hell).  So long waves coalesce
magnificent Pharaoh & Osiris
in theopolitical impasse
with alien slave throngs – witness

the fissure of Red Sea by their God!
Tyrant & people, king
& kin… a knotty kenning;
Agnes Martin might trace a grid

to simplify ratios of power & myth.
A single snowflake amid crows
of winter, in the beginning was
the splinter-word.  Her spark was in the pith.

2.17.20

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