|
POETRY
fair
platitude
© Lisa Rosenblatt 2004
what
potentiality existed at that moment of your noble birth
would
that i were the one to suckle you while you became all that you could
but
what you are now poor beast is a metamorphosis of symbolism
whose
meaning has atrophied from disuse and now that you’ve fallen
we trod
over you, our ignorance cloaked as bliss
our
coveted sacred cow devoid of muscle, sinew and flesh
your
bleached bones not worthy of hyenas to haggle over
and yet
those bones rattle within the confines of my skull
keeping
me awake at night
would
that i could make you rise like lazarus, i had such magic once,
a long
time ago in the throes of naiveté at the tenderest age of eight
if i
had once waved a flag then it was because i thought
i was
part of the parade passing through my town that day
like
the baton twirler and the clown, whose oversized shoes
of red
white and blue
made me
think of mousetraps though i knew not why
on that
day my summer legs jut out from their star spangled shorts
and are
splayed like reeds their symmetry against the inky tarmac signing V
but not
for victory, least of all for those who perished in saigon
and
later on when night unfurled
i
watched from the rooftop of a red brick building
the
ribald lights of fourth of july
whose
bursts of magenta and tangerine scrawled upon the sky
shapes
that had no meaning
and i
found myself aching for what i thought you alone could give
the
lights, the clown, the baton twirler, fade
like so
many afterimages from my mind
i close
my eyes and dream of all the things i could do if you were mine,
that
your meaning would be more real than reality itself
and the
angel’s trumpet would herald your coming
thereby
excising a circle of peerless perfection in the universe
that
you could slip through
and
wending your way like amorphous serpentine fingers
into
the subconscious mind of us all
waking
us from our self induced slumber
for in
the beginning a sorrowful myth supplanted the truth
and the
fairer sex who knew from whence they came
the
part is not the whole
were
grief stricken with the deception
wept,
and willed themselves to sleep
but you
have come, you have sought us out
we
heard the behest
daughters,
mothers, crones
wake
broken sister, wake and join me
my soul
sings for in the dream i dream
oppression
is no more
in my
dream
the
crones wear ill-fitting polyester pants
and
have parchment paper for skin that bruises all too easily
because
they trusted the goddoctorman to tell them how to heal their bodies
and how
to birth their babies on their backs
like
helpless turtles, their limbs thrash
so
great is their desire to stand or squat,
but on
their backs he keeps them and has their breasts bound
goddoctorman
tries to lay claim to the womb
woman
is made to yield the fruits
until
knowledge of the tree of life is known by him
until
you’re a harridan he says
harridan
you have been called but are more lovely than helen of troy to me
as i
watch you shuffle along toting groceries behind you
in a
rickety cart of steel
i
rejoice to see you lift your wrinkled chin,
your
cavernous lips behind which there are no teeth stretch from left to
right
and at
first i believe it’s me you’ve blessed with your enigmatic grin
but i
realize as your face tilts, your eyes, so pale they could be white
and
like a pair of land locked floes
whose
origin is too vast to encompass with my arms, my hands
you
offer this oblation not to me, but to the rising sun
as if
it was that heavenly body alone
which
gave your demeanor the fortitude to say
“look,
here i be, pressing bravely forward this homely face of mine
through
existence, this existence mine and what i make of it!”
yea, i
think 'twas the sun that gave you such strength
and
still better yet
showed
you how to crush vanity beneath those arthritic feet
and
pressing forward along the sidewalk you do not fear
the
emaciated miscreant who for all purposes and intents
would
have been any homecoming queen’s king in another lifetime
but in
this one his cheeks are pockmarked
his arm
is studded with dirty marks
where
the junk was smacked into his vein
and the
money with which his junk was purchased was stolen
from
the numberless old women with parchment paper for skin
and
when he whacked you over the head with the steel pipe
he was
hoping for so much more than eleven dollars, thirteen cents
and a
prescription for insulin which you were just about to get refilled
but the
miscreant got to you first old woman and you slipped into a coma
passing
over from life to death with the same impeccable grace
as when
i watched your body pressing forward on that sidewalk
moving
east to west
and
neither the winds of march nor the mad boy-child’s strike
was
ever a deterrent to you
in the
dream where you are mine i would rejoice
when
you took us to that chasm
and we
made the quantum leap into evolution en masse
where
the next president whose chartreuse garter belt is visible
but her
bra isn’t
asks
that we, the people, of our own volition
yank
the plug from the wall and drag that noxious propaganda box
to the
nearest dock
where
we shall all, of our own volition
board
the nina, the pinta, the santa maria and with our boxes in tow
head
out to sea then hoist them overboard and watch
as the
whales rise to the surface singing
the
president tosses her high heels in, peels off her seamed silk stockings
and
with hands clasped for prayer or dive (i know not which)
her
lithe form follows in a perfect arc
covenant,
oh my covenant
under
she goes and when she resurfaces gone at last is her spun chemise
of
cotton candy pink rife with it’s paternalistic agenda
she is
flanked by the leathery skinned whales and water of lapis lazuli
she
laughs and sings that we, the people, don’t need her anymore
and are
only fit for anarchy now that our beastly boxes
have
sunk to the depths of the ocean
and
away she swims never to be seen again
then
king jesus appears but this time a queen is at his side
and she
is so cruelly beautiful with eyes of beryl
and a
mouth stained by pomegranates
because
for the last six thousand years she dwelt in hades
a kiss
from her mouth yields the gift of summer
a
thousand years in length shall her summer be
her
fecund and dusky hips are girded in raiment so pure
that
one cannot doubt
they
rebuke chastity who was conceived for the sake of neutered men
whose
spite has bred the myth of virginity
and for
eve’s sake who never was cloaked in flesh to begin with
the
queen sheds light on the meaning of the word and saith
that
eve be but the darkness
verily
she is
the
depth and breadth of the human mind
whose
measure is fathomless
not
unlike like the stars which hang
poised
above us by whose grace, whose hand?
a mind
not conceived without a mother
do not
defile the mother then brethren
without
her you would not know the taste of flesh
which
by the grace of her you have known in the biblical sense
fall,
fall, at the feet of that which gives you mortal life
do not
covet the ring which was given to the handmaid for all time
and let
us have no more false words spoken against allegory
at
which point the bridegroom anoints her with his oil
she
gives him the kiss of life
and
relinquishes hair like knotted ropes of wooly silver
which
plummet to her knees
for all
humanity she lets those ropes down so they might ascend
such is
her beauty that matisse and gaugin exhume themselves
and
vying to be the first one to paint her race off
in a
particularly bow legged fashion quicker even than don quixote
chasing
bergamot and orange scented windmills
their
quest too, is redolent with it’s own heady scent
and so
they race to find a scrap of canvas upon which
they
shall pay homage to her pulchritude
with
such a keen eye and deft hand
that
before long she’ll be immortalized
the
canvas stretched taut and wide
across
some billboard on route 66
would
that you were mine
i would
make the earth spin widdershins back to 1939
or to
be on the safe side, 1929
and
slip into the pocket of every jew a little note which read:
do as
my own father did before warsaw erects a ghetto
for
that fascist painter who can’t paint worth a shit
and
who, if he could have chosen another path
would
have served humanity more justly
by
following van gogh’s lead and cleaved away an ear
a
humble sacrifice upon the altar of subjective expression
the
sublimity of such creations which sometimes render me mute
and if
that missing appendage could in no way
make
his hands do something other than to wreak death
let che
be transported back, che my kinsman of fey bloodline
and
crow with the mirth bequeathed to the irish
let him
crow in the face of that fascist what is true forever true
and
knowing truth would smite him,
the
fascist trembled to hear ernesto cry,
“ i
am not a liberator.
liberators
do not exist.
the
people liberate themselves!”
at
which point the bent crosses righted themselves
the
fascist and his lot were turned into braying asses
set a
course due east from which they did not swerve
and
finding some high crag brayed once more
then
hurled themselves headlong into the caspian sea
but che
was not transported back much to the relief of imperialism
although
it’s days are numbered
and the
puppet dressed in nazi costume
whose
strings are tethered to a three legged throne
never
did cleave away an ear
and how
i wish the multitudes that issued forth from the tribe of twelve
could
have done what my own father did
my
father hotfooted it out of Poland
in
rundown shoes laced with braided horsehair and feigning catholicism
did not
go bravely into that monstrous goodnight
a
bathhouse whose gassy filth
has
made part of our collective consciousness a permanent shade of gray
would
that you were mine i would build a pyre
and
into it would cast constantine’s donation
iconoclasm
not my intention
my
motives would be for the mothers who sleep and do not know
the
conscripts design
but i
see it was neither sacred nor holy
and
until the broken ones awoken
i would
spirit away and hide in my pavilion those boy children
who
being forsaken, have since raged against the mother
and
stay their hands from violence against those that birthed them
for the
prefect, the holy see and the goddoctorman
the
first and last triumvirate that ever shall be
are
guilty of covetous thoughts against the woman and her brood
for
until they can beget life without her set child against the mother
mark my
words for i would use them to destroy their house of cards
which
tumble even now, without me
and he,
whose mother must surely sleep still
he who
is charged with the post of attorney general
i have
issue against him also
in his
ear i would whisper sotto voce,
“our
bare flesh is no threat to your society”
but he
who cut off the healing hands of turtle woman
and
left her to die like a dog on the road
because
she did know what dogbane could do
that be
the man that is the threat
it is
he and not the dissident
not the
sacrificial lamb who wastes away in leavenworth
for
some twenty seven years
and
whose guilt remains to be proven
beyond
that elusive shadowy pine ridge yet
the
murderer and the man
around
the corner from where i am
who
brutally rapes the child
and
skips out of the joint after only doing five
there
be the cancer upon the soul of humanity
would
that you were mine
i would
put out the eyes of capitalism with a hot poker
and in
the nonplussed sockets i would glue
two of
caesar’s worthless coins and now being blind and all
those
who dwelled in the most desirable communities
those
self indulgent beings unaware of their transitory-ness
and do
all they can to indelibly impress
upon
the mind of eternity their station in life and huddle, those poor
classes
supernatant
upon swatches of land known as prime real estate
now
that they were blind i could play a sleight of hand trick
and
relocate them onto something called a reservation
and
i’d make sure to choose one that still has no running water or
electricity
where
the boundary lines keep them in and me out
and us
different but not really and truly
would
that you were mine i would approach patriarchy
without
trepidation, for no ophelia am i
and
rewrite his story books
and
tell the truth about tonto
and
native women that were sterilized against their will
and how
the people who walked the good red road
possessed
a knowledge which so frightened the system
that
the system grappled to systematically do
what
the fascist painter who couldn’t paint worth a shit tried to do
and all
the innocent blood which was spilled
has
since marked the brow of the oppressors
there i
say be the mark of the beast, and oh say can you see
but
these truths weren’t scripted in my history book
back in
the seventies when cat stevens was still cat stevens
and
listening to him made me think
we were
headed somewhere on his peace train
his
peace train headed for the rift in the time space continuum
and
emerging on that other side
there
would be no more wars to be fought by innocents and pawns
no
unmarked graves into which we would cast a part of our own flesh
no
hunger that wasted limbs and blinded eyes
or
imperialism relegating masses to some godforsaken wasteland
where
black gold was more abundant than sustenance
and
where juntas were given armaments
to
control the sentient beings who have since been driven mad
because
i, in my naiveté believed our nation’s consciousness
was on
the cusp fair platitude of experiencing the taste of noble freedom
and
when we broke on through to jimmy’s other side
all the
former things having passed away
and the
light that surrounds us now transmutes
and we
are you and you are us
now
that i am seven again
your
potential has become kinetic in my mind
would
fair platitude, in the dream when you were mine
About
the poet - Lisa Rosenblatt is married with two children and living in Las
Cruces, NM. The full-time
mom/moonlighting poet is looking forward to completing a degree in women
studies and English.
<<<
>>>
TO SEE MORE OF
THE WRITERS WORKSHOP, PLEASE CLICK
HERE!
|
