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
