Autumn Menagerie 18: Solitude

Paris, Courtyard of The Museum of Arms, by A. D. .

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Solitary walker,

Astride sunshine

Gently settling over

cobble-stone.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The gutters

Form a Tau

You are too distant

To note.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aloof and alone,

You brave ancient

Cannon.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Foreboding shade

Of the entrance

Fails to induce

A turn.

Silent Night

So tiny
and greedy for light,
             the moon
             shines full
             then halved 
             to hidden.

We lift eyes upwards
and lose the way.

Without a feel
for the turn and
believe ourselves still.

A Prophet in New York

Suppose stars under feet.
An error,
mistaking a puddle's reflection
for a fallen scrap
of starry black sky.

Golden calves gild
civic altars.

Behind tinted glass
the Hidden God
passes.
                                      Astonished, I'm lost 
                                       to neon suggestion.
The Creator did not
extend His hand.

A pair of red beacons
recede into city's
Host of light.

Autumn Menagerie 17: Euphorion

"Look around now,

These are the days of the beggars and the choosers......

And it's hard to love, there's so much to hate...."

----"Praying for Time", George Michael.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Timeless words, beautifully sung,

Always rise to fall on deaf ears.

Euphorion, beautiful man-child,

Helen weeps for you.

Autumn Menagerie 16: The Face of Zero

You are nothing, son.

Passed over by those

Who only acknowledge

Your existence by saying

You inhabit another world.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing explains

Murderous disparity.

Inequality decimates

By withholding

Surplus quantity.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A lottery on a

Global scale;

No ticket, no life

Nothing to sell.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You were born Zero,

A Negative Theology.

Venetian Bloom

I
Crepuscular smiles 
hover above incubation.
Central Air switches off and on,
cradling us in dream's inspiration.

Soon we'll bloom
and turn to the Sun.

II
In Venice she preferred
Tintoretto to my beloved
Titian.

We argued outside the Salute 
as pale voyeurs crossed,
in bloodless packs,
to St. Mark's.

Take us, Canalazzo,
past tour books
and souvenirs.

Where dew of kisses
is taken up by hands 
of cherubim

To fashion pillows on
a bed of blue sublime.

Autumn Menagerie 15: Women Damned

Slight and weightless

as consumptive boys,

they glide like

pretty phantoms of

Rilke's ideal.

                            Radiance runs
                            off limbs figuring

                            a strange geometry

                            where bodies
                            lose curve

                            to line.

Autumn Menagerie 14: Saturn(The Bankers)

"C'est le premier vol de l'aigle."
---- Countess de Lehon
(tr. This is the first flight(theft) of the eagle.)


He returns from exile.
Shackled in shame
Behind the Sun,
His thoughts ripened
In sempiternal night,
Set on revenge.


Beware all youth.
He's hungry and
Now wants
All the children.

His greed
Never sated.
No rest until,
Belly bursting,
Splitting a grin,
Everything taken,
Proudly he leans back,
Pruning the masticated.

Every new dawn
Is another feast.

(The Sacred Texts
State: Time is Money.)

Autumn Menagerie 13: The Eternal Feminine

"All in transition is but reflection;

The untouchable here is elation;

Here the ineffable we cry;

The Eternal Feminine draws us on high."

--------- J.W. von Goethe, Faust, Part II, "Chorus Mysticus".

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the heart of dream

Youth never becomes.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The gold of a miser,

Never touched by light,

Is not fussed over

As relentlessly

As her form.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Translation my own with some liberties taken.)

The unquoted blank verse is, of course, my work.

Belle Menzogne(Healthcare Reform as La Vita Nuova)

"Fili mi, tempus est ut praetermictantur simulacra nostra."
(tr. My son, it is time for our false images to be put aside.)
--------Dante, La Vita Nuova, XII.



Let us pretend to take the Health Insurance Industry's final
"report" before the Committee Vote on the Baucus' Bill seriously.
Inhabit a bizarro world where an industry doesn't want the Federal
Government Mandating, by law, all citizens be consumers. Act
shocked when they issue a given as if it were a threat, "We're
gonna raise premiums anyway."

These "beautiful fictions" merely served to provide "Dante"
Baucus a screen obloquy to protect anyone from finding out
his ardent labors for his one true love, Beatrice. Honorably, she,
the Health Care Insurance Industry, has rewarded her Cavalier
Servente with a cry of chaste consternation.

Honor is not lost. Nothing has changed on either side.
These false images set aside all truth(real reform) and give
up the Healthcare Domain to the Insurance Industry(Beatrice).
Our "Dante's" heart is wounded but La Vita Nuova must go
on. He, no longer a boy, is made man.

Our next encounter features "Dante" Baucus writing his
Divina Commedia wherein Beatrice is lifted up to the Mystic
Rose in 8th Heaven. It also depicts the travails of the "Pilgrim",
a Health Care "Consumer", enduring the Inferno and Purgatory
of health services to view Paradiso. The devout "Dante"
Baucus has "laid up treasures" and is rewarded in holy 
matrimony with eternally desired Consummation. 
Those treasures help our ardent lover rise above his mundane,
"vulgare", station as a Cavalier Servente for hire.

(belle menzogne, tr. beautiful lies)

Autumn Menagerie 11: Rilke: The Poverty of Poetry

"Poverty is a great radiance from within..."
---Rilke
(cartoon by George Grosz)

To soar so high

and not see

the idolatry of words

become inhumanity.

Autumn Menagerie 10: Vox Populi

Something terrible swells

in our hearts.

We cannot speak it.

It shades fresh lines

on every face.

A dark tide

rises above

our estate.

This silence,

a vigilant hope

to ride out

the break.

Autumn Menagerie 9: The Harpie

Hatred floats above us

Bounced from satellites

and carried by

principalities

Into inertopian homes,

Fouling eyes and souls

with each fallen frame.

When the graceless

baiting ceases,

she brings the misery

to a shameless end

by calling the viewer "friend".

Autumn Menagerie 8: Beatrice

"I sensed the regal sternness of her face,
as she continued in the tone of one
who saves the sharpest words until the end:

"'Yes, look at me! Yes, I am Beatrice!
So you at last have deigned to climb the mount?
You learned at last that here lies human bliss?'"

------- Dante, Purgatorio, Canto XXX, lns. 70-75.





Through daily travail her face
Is the one, everlasting, solace.






Modicum et non videbitis me;
et iterum modicum et vos videbitis me.

Autumn Menagerie 7: Castor (The Dioscuri)

He gains hearts and minds
without effort in all climes.

The gold of his tales
move all to higher ideals.

A brother to all truth,
but to blood greater proof.

Soon he'll rise
to brighten
darkened skies.

Autumn Menagerie 6: The Snow Maiden

To melt or bleed to death
is the same.
One succumbs to warmth
as life seeps away.

The Snow Maiden
keeps vigil over
cold hearts.

Her warmth, like brandy

and velvet, goes to

the head.

She is a beautiful

rescue.

Autumn Menagerie 5: The Histrion Squared

There was a girl
who sought treasure
on the shore.
Diligent as a boy
doing it all
for show.

She's left those shores.
Now the forest
closes her show
of measured step
and sharp gaze.

Seattle

Daily the
giant Syringe
pierces a full-bellied
sky


Water falls
Over every face


Washing away
lesser needles
into gutters


Dragons fly
through heavy air,

Exhaling invisible death
from scaly mouths


Long hair, plaids,
and scent of
fishwives' hands
smother the gem.

It is lovely,
yet sad,
to watch the Sun
immerse,
once more,
into the great
peace.

Autumn Menagerie 4: The Modern Pico at Play

"A great wonder, Asclepius, is man!"

Mercury to Asclepius, from On the Dignity of Man, Pico Della Mirandola.















Hieratic Melodies flow into his ear.

Youth, a slanted crown, sits

weightless on his brow.

He is at one with his future Kingdom.

The Modern Pico will always glide

"In the Time of Lilies...."(Sing the last line.)

Autumn Menagerie 3: Chopin's Muse

On Majorca, desolate, eyes red with preterition,
he faintly cries, "Polonia."
A figure resolves him.
Her eyes the skies of his nativity
subdue smothering horizons.

His fingers finesse the loss
she echoes within
beautifully.

Autumn Menagerie 2: Venus Anadyomene

Weary rummager for 

the Gold of Truth, 

your tired eyes

find repose in hers. 

Nestle your head 

upon her soft breast.

She brings sweet solace. 

Dispel the inked breath

of living death 

from your mouth 

with a warm kiss. 

Embrace the pleasant mistress 

who allows you to settle into 

the shell of her sumptuousness.

Fall

The night stretches as the light recedes. When your heart wavers

ask yourself, WWBD. What would Bidet do?