GOLD FLEECE
In the blank depths, at nadir of winter.
An acid stain of turpentine.
Peto’s absinthe green
in the still life; drumbeats in the mirror.
Lincoln & Kennedy… Kennedy & King.
Black silk around the photographs.
Time, summarized in epitaphs –
a rocket glare that freezes everything.
& traitors cluster in a mortis-ring
about great Yggdrasil,
composing lizard doggerel
with fangs of trumpery & sting
of fraud. Shaping a lattice for a type
of self-enclosing anti-Christ,
whose mesmerism none resist –
Rumored Injustice To Be Smashed By Hype.
So in such straits we huddle round the mast.
No longer measure progress
by the steam pipe’s hiss
& whistle of alarms. It’s in the past,
a memory of island buoyancy
elliptical & calm
we’ll find that palm;
amid light’s brilliance, a transparency
as if an eye looked down from azure dome
as acorn witness for an apple kingdom –
as if the citizens of heaven-home
were you & I… gold fleece of human freedom.
2.12.20
