A Herd in the Womb of Autumn


A herd in the womb of autumn,

Wrapped in flame

Yet grazing comfortably,

Relishing the dying green

Of the farmyard.

So provincial are they --

Content to know nothing

Of that about which they do not know,

Content to masticate through war,

Famine,

The diabolic,

Plagues prying life

From those in less fortunate glades.

Occasionally uttering a smug moo

To no one in particular.

When one of them dies,

He is blotted from the minds of the others

Before their next mouthfuls.

Fatly entertained by the growth of grass,

This culmination of cowkind

Steeps above other herds

On legs that grow rickety,

Thinning to pencils that will snap in good time.

Sublime does injustice to the awe they stir,

The mighty American awe.

Ah,

Another (soon-to-be-sweet cud) tuft awaits,

A forebear of meadows that will swallow

These cattle whole. 






Juggernaut


Like soldiers

Goose-stepping -

They hook shoreward,

Claiming the seabed

They cover.

Capping in one long stretch,

They sometimes 

Join hands,

A grey bivouac in the sea.

At length, they taper

To a thin line of foam -

Like snow burying

The dry winterkill.

The sea takes the water back

Into itself,

Leaving only shells

That coruscate in the sand

Like torch-lit armor.

And the water tolls

Its dream of feeble waves

That might have enfolded

You or me

Before striking the cliff of sleep.

Happy girls Maying madly in the sun,

Lifting their aprons,

Heavy with starfish,

Heavy with cowries,

To the moonlit sky.





Gorgon

 

 “Once you had fierce dogs in your cellar: but they changed at last into birds and sweet singers.”

-        Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche

Once you had birds and sweet singers

In your cellar,

But they changed at last into fierce dogs.

The snap of their ulcerated jaws

Rattled the joists.

It was like this on the night you

Stood on the worm-eaten porch,

With your graven face

Inclined grotesquely upward,

As if you had been staring at the wings

Of angels thrumming the dark air

Among the ashes of the southern sky.

The thrumming of wings tapered

To a wheeze that suggested mourning,

A manic hissing,

As if a knot of catacombs

Had suddenly disgorged the filth

Of rotting thieves and knaves.

You were not surprised

When a serpent unrolled its scabrous

Length from the brow of abomination,

Girdling a rank and piggish face

Around which the others seethed

And spat and spun themselves

Into what they were –

The unclean reflections

Of your mind.

The Gorgons had tusks, like boars,

And claws of bronze.

Their wings were of a sallow gold –  

Your last thought was this,

Before you joined the opaque stones.