Savage Gods
I
America needs its suicides,
its ritual fire-dances,
its ecstasies of non-being.
II
Crane, Kees and Berryman
all died with an erotic poise
more painful than Van Gogh's Christ.
Only life itself could come
between them and the heavens.
That they could not bridge the gap
was their fortunate fall.
Language became unspeakable
in their stuffed mouths;
so they became unstoppable,
plundering the night air
like sea eagles clawing at
the river's plight.
III
Sylvia Plath was a wholesome lass
who drowned in a sea of gas.
In the final winter of her discontent
poetry coursed through her veins
like an amphetamine rush,
and gave her the appetite
to eat her own Dasein.
IV
I'm through with the official memoranda
of witness and contradiction.
Victor and vanquished together
Rally under the banner of
that pile of maggoty bones
hung out to dry in the public squares.
The statutory speaks eloquence
in bold strokes and gold serifs
yet whose crafted glyphs,
etherized by the air it breathes
and leeched of all poignancy, is bald
as a perfunctory Senate speech.
V
Public moments gratify the whim
of a nation which cannot rest
easy upon its laurels. But these are
fleeting gains. Human beings,
as Eliot says, cannot bear too much
reality.
History is a register of fancy. War is a matter of personal
taste. Poetry is the language
of saints.
If only everything were so black and white.
*First published in Poems Niederngasse - www.niederngasse.com