poem in memory of Sen. John McCain

UNPERISHING REPUBLIC

                                        i.m. Sen. John McCain

Politicians are not often poets

though they might be actors

in a denouement of Shakespeare’s

Measure for Measure.  Just deserts

are rarely staged there, in the Senate,

these days – when a thumbs-down

from a stalwart shaken lion

mimes the freedom to be obstinate

against all bullies, liars, tyrants.

When a simple judgement – white

supremacists aren’t patriots,

they’re traitors – damns those deviants

from one magnanimous dream of Union

(human, not partisan;

global, not only Arizonan).

Comanches raided every town

along the Rio Grande, once: Yankee

& Viet Cong slaughtered

each other, martyred

kids; but we transmute reality

by change of heart, by radical

meekness.  With mutual

respect... consensual

advice, consent... our ancient legal

dance of equity, for human dignity...

so might this son of Cain

be able to smile again

in that unperishing Republic of hilarity.

8.27.18

the river is a strong brown god

AZTEC ALPHABET

The brazen serpent of the Mississippi

runs through my veins,

cantinnas Hobo (in vain).

How to tell my own (con version) story?

The antic disposition of these shelves

of incunabulae (obscure

revoluminous curious lore)

ripples off Norse keels – revolves

around my cranium (son of

McCain I am) – the worm

a canker, iced like berm

at Sutton Hoo (& strong as

love).  He will lift himself up

into his father’s affection

(this child of deflection)

at last, & be first in the stirrup

at the gates of his sly enemies –

he will be the son

who twists there (frozen

image of abjection) underneath greed-

seas of rifle-toting angels

(Cuzco school).  Spleen

of Hamlet, by the bedroom

screen – cunning de Kooning angles –

that Master of Gray, backed in a corner

of Ravenna – or raving

Coatlicue, stoning

the Consul in the dog-ravine (here,

                  *

Fido)... someone lurks in a mirror

with double doves (tin-

whistle Hobo-child of sin).

Abandona-donna’s abbatoir?

Some Aztec alphabête of yesteryear?

Hazel the moth-goddess

flits into brown recess

of brown recluse... (the spider’s... her).

The sacrifice of sacrifices –

hunters’ offering,

a shiny golden ring –

is like this image from ice-fisher’s

thing (icon of everything);

is like this light bread

Moses left for dead,

or Aaron molded into iron Sing-Sing –

a memory of Psyche-crimes

no one can heal,

nor break the lead seal

from the dark backyard (abysmal

time) until the flutter of a wing

like a mind from the sea

Hobo’s thirsty misery

slakes   or forsakes   a palm, circling

through the gray salt latitudes

like blistered sword

blessing   like sunshade

père-sol   ultramarine   (beatitudes)

9.25.17