Mussolini shoals

MARBLE FACT

Long way from stones of Notre Dame.

We haven’t that feudal allegiance

to a field beyond France.

Bright poppies blister over Belgium

where conundrum of Isis in Iowa

came from.  She is, and was

mysterium of Osiris

on the Mississip – Ezra’s mirror-delta;

hard marble fact planted at West Branch

in Herbert Hoover’s memory

(who would not have taken kindly

to any meat-locker Muss avalanche).

Ezra yodeling the alpine Swiss serene

of his muse Circe Clementine

Vichy (& all the swine

she mesmerized, so spotless clean)

erasing all that history of filthy usury

& black boys handing Bibles

through the bars... Abel’s

your bro, Ez – cain’t you see?

Ah... the shudder of absurdity.

Knife-stab in Marlowe’s eye

– over the Jew of Malta,

of all things!  It cannot be.

It is.  Villon grins in your face,

King Flibberty-Gibbet.

Grimace may be safety net

for every reprobate.  O prodigal race...

5.4.19

 

only a sketch : Jozef Czapski

JOZEF CZAPSKI

Only a sketch, a drawing, a cartoon.

Scrawny shivering prisoner

reading a book (Siberia).

This upright Pole, from a dead platoon

survived, somehow (so tall, so

innocent).  Budding artist

from Paris, now of Tashkent –

following Proust into gulag, ghetto.

Somehow.  Like mast on frigate.

Colors mime sky...

Poland, we must die.

Yet he shows up (seraph, implicate).

Survives.  Grows old in Paris,

having kept his conscience

into Moscow (blessed

nonsense... bunks his paradise).

Grace is the sign of something human,

intelligence the trace

of civilization, Falcon-Ace

(O hoary Horus of the hunted men).

Isis (in West Branch) is your mother,

Belgium’s deep divide

the humdrum Hoover prelude

to a splenetic Grant Wood war –

Virgo, we know not who we are.

Speak of the grain of wheat,

Persephone.  Complete

your D.C. scan (Henry’s North Star).

3.3.19

from Jozef Czapski, Inhuman Land : Searching for the Truth in Soviet Russia, 1941-1942 (NYRB, 2018)

unfinished business

LIGHT CANOE

Cold Minneapolis.  White flakes

float solo, lazily

toward frozen sod.  He

sleepy too, Great Harry – shakes

his fusty bearskin (Mister Rabbi

tucked into his cave).

Wish they would behave.

A wayward dolor over fly-by

country ekes the bile from bunny-fur.

Infinitely gentle,

infinitely... mental

clamps inhibit memory, yessir.

Over the mantle in the dim apartment

Lafayette was dancing

just for Washington.  Sing

victory, Columbia – our true intent

was Liberty.  Hail to the Chief

in Indian Country –

arctic blue pine tree

sheds secret home (Sending Relief).

Grandpa’s got amnesia now.

The old brass shell from

Belgium mourns like a bell

in the pipe-smoky corner.  Plow

up the rose from the deep well of France,

Willa – that spiral dance

Crane zigzagged in a trance,

Atlantis echoing in weedy elegance.

                      *

Unfinished business crowds a heavy

surf onto the canvas.

Painter sticks to grass

with orange tar-baby.  Chevy

waves from Davy’s Locker – swings

his palm toward magnetic

north.  D.C. frantic –

Empire stuns fleet – Mort brings

us to us knees.  Only a wee

green island merman,

imperturbable, remain –

Pacific mule (Admiral of Ocean Sea).

A little grey jay (Whisky Jack)

whistles through her veil

of salt-shaking.  Sail

on, Peace Corps – Pearl’s Clamshack!

Under the turbid rotoring

of pyramid schemes –

when trumpery becomes

a weird mudfish – a rippling

stone floats to the surface, springs

to hover – catenary

honeycomb (or berry-

gem).  All minions, toughs & underlings

flee suddenly, like shady characters

out of a bad novel

(their plots unravel).

Blue J’s light canoe threads jasper piers.

12.7.16