Transmogrified View

There was no way of knowing what she forgave, and what she could not forgive. The song sings of untruths;

its melody, setting out to prove what can not be verified, obliterates point of view while preaching to the converted. But how the vituperative music is unwilling to deny what is, or explain what is not; how confidently it creates a climate, no matter how strongly inveighed against, displaying the courage of sensibility.

Some of the sun's silver raindrops splatter, others are absorbed in the distant haze. The fallen angel, whose memory attempts to salvage a part of the sky once wholly beholden, plucks volcanic flowers; listens to the birds mimicking the human voice; loves the strange abyss. Released from the grip of mid-August branches, acorns and crab apples fall to the ground. You can fill a hole, but you can't "undig" it.

Let's face it, phantasmagoria is fun; at least until the ugly stick is waved like a magic wand, but violence murders reticence, ushers in change, and there's nothing wrong with that, is there? Bring on the mercenaries! Three flags sway in a slight breeze: an American, a Confederate and a Jolly Roger, and each one serves as a reminder that the satanic is just another subdivision of the romantic, the perverse notion of the sordid idealand what ploy is rocked more by the wind and puerile interests?-ravaged by God and necromancy?

Then grief causes laughter: the homicidal smirk; the suicidal grin; the profound, out-of-tune guffaw. A hummingbird partakes of the sugar water; systolic pressure pushes blood upward, into the observation chamber; plane geometry produces the right answers, but withers in the broken light, its context injured.

There is terrible caprice, exilic woe, and no other choice but to sweep mistrust under the carpet, so that a new era of joy (proper laughter) might be ignited. But compromise and hope are also mistakes: vague collectors of dust, and masters of aggression, rinsed and hung out to dry. Lost freedom is mourned, beckons again.

The true song of the songbird is beautiful and still; the skeletons tune their instruments.

The undergrowth is not as thick as it was last month, but greener. At dusk, the noble wish is buried in the poppy fields. In the evening, I, as father of that funeral, ask her to confess her darkest deeds, beg her to confide her darkest desires. She is much more than just an object. The redolent air is no small pleasure; the moon, bright and blue.

Copyright World Poetry, Incorporated Jul/Aug 1996
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