James Mullaney, 28 december 2011
In an Aztec priest's state of feral grace I survey
The unsleeping barrio from this tenement-temple.
I count minutes, quarter-hours, half-hours,
Hours and hours. Jupiter will rise at 11:37;
Saturn sets shortly thereafter.
Last night the storefront evangelist put a cross
Fist through the astrologer's plate glass window.
The night before that my neighbor Luisa
Was shot through the heart by Mara Salvatrucha
For testifying in Federal Court.
An honors student in life science
At La Guardia Community College, she was
To have been the soprano in a requiem for sea turtles
Tonight, in a recital at P.S. 1. They flew
The body back to Yucatan for burial
Where for fifty centuries sage astronomers
Keen and quiet as puma eminences
Patiently plotted civilzation's ceiling,
Until men in mountains floating on the sea
Torched their archives and purged their superstitions.
I watch with golden rays in my eyes
As people place wreaths, candles, along the avenue.
Graffitists paint a hieroglyphic mural.
Surely Quetzalcoatl will not withhold the rain.
James Mullaney, 27 december 2011
1.
Three Ming vases rusticate in a ring.
I choose one, for its simple garden scene
Razes my poems to rice grass. Cardinals sing;
A beanpole fronts a lean-to; flutes flash clean.
Fishermen in a horizonless haze
Apostrophize the ancestral spirits
Who tramp the mountains and the forest ways.
The noontide turns. An urchin child near its
Dharma guardian answers slights to newts
And skinks, but shuns the cross-eyed billygoat.
Tacking east, across dreamscape river routes,
Vase painting glides the Ming by sampan boat,
Where once we two, Christina Ladylove,
Mulled a blushing maple moon, balmed thereof.
2.
Now drink mead to Ceres' agronomy -
You've plowed a sage into a country rube;
His solemn pretense of autonomy
Felled by your hook like a fat wet jujube.
So Ida squeezed ewe's milk again this May
When oxeye daisies drowsed between the briers
And warblers tuned their rustic roundelay.
Our bodies shell because the ghost suspires.
Thunderous rains replenish tenderness
When urbane polish dazzles to a fault.
What makes wishes wine, Christina? This kiss...
...and pledges pure beneath the starry vault.
Pastures in the heart require a bumpkin -
Their fruitage yields such a pretty pumpkin!
3.
A snowy lodge lay nestled in the hills
Where fragrant spruce pine scorched a fireplace;
A frosty crust whipped at the windowsills
And twilled a veil contrived of icy lace.
So placidly the firewashed cottage twinkled
Amidst the bluish drifts of virgin snow
That in a-crept a pine mouse, wintry-wrinkled,
To warm beside the phosphorescent glow.
Berime, the mousie mourned, a Princess fair,
For whom enchanted knights at yuletide pine.
'Twas then save locks of golden heathen hair
She deliquesced per crystal flakes and fine.
The mouse evokes a glassy patina -
Of sturdier stuff is made Christina.
4.
The moon alone requited me tonight,
Lit in a lissome apricot sarong
On the fenestella, waxed carmelite,
And wrapped her thighs around my evensong.
Prayer became improbable. Facing up
To my craterlike desires, I felt small
Wonder time's antecessors, lacing up
The sky's chaste eye, cast hymeneal
Banns to youth: Artemis and Athena
Lashed the duffers arched to those immortals.
As they did do you to me, Christina,
Steeling out astrological quartiles.
And so I share my bedroom with the moon -
Grave virgins in the wake of mirth's typhoon.
5.
Pals picnic, Judas-kissed, all-forgiving,
Wan as the blush and lavender cirrus -
August fraternity of the Living
Plainchanting our supermarket peeress,
Christina. One by one we smile, listening,
Rapt - around Riesling, cottage cheese, and pears -
To her blithe rebuffs, the river glistening
Like the faux diadem commonwealth wears.
Inner Truth isn't the end of the road -
Buddhahood makes an eternal return.
We share a planet, a breath, an abode,
Ensemble commedia/earth's diurn.
Apostles declare self-giving devout -
I seek Christinahood, inside and out.
6.
Come naked night, come sawdust and tinsel,
Pillow plush her footfall: My - our - "Maitresse"
Christina. Help a Prince and a Damsel
Script a rogue Romeo's carnal distress.
Women misvalue me in this movie -
Be thankful it's just Universal glam.
True, in Starsphere I'm considered groovy;
Forbid that whom I seem were who I am!
Peppermint Priestess, condescend to read
These panegyrics, husbandmen of fame.
Never was ennui foxlessly flurried -
We know ourselves through a glass darkly, Dame.
No Bergman blocks, grips, or lights your glory:
Movies within movies strangle story.
7.
Before putting pen to a dry broadside
Vouch these sonnets a just lineation -
Christina heralds the good sidhe worldwide,
Calm, sagacious, and past numeration.
Her quest is redress for the lovelorn heart.
In revels and vision trance wild she tells
Inscrutable sorrows - the sibyl's art -
Then renders the blue dove valentine spells.
What need to hail her in secular script?
She augurs the age in vatic verses.
Seal this tribute in a helium crypt -
Make of these sonnets heavenly hearses.
Because we commend you your endeavor
Prosper Christina, always and ever.
James Mullaney, 27 december 2011
Scarred by two red gashes in ebony
The Black Madonna assays her demesne.
Still Poland's protectress, still Poland's Queen,
She safeguards and defends the history
Of a proud land, imbued with majesty.
When a base Hussite slashed her blackened mien
Blood beads dappled the countenance serene.
That brigand perished in ignominy.
In time to come, whatever may befall,
Her shrine will be Poland's loveliest school.
You Pilgrims to Czestochowa, come call!
Come saint and sinner, knave and holy fool.
Whether on earth's stoop or in heaven's hall
All must adore at Mary's mercy stool.
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