Poetry

Apologia

ruin is when you can’t stop & can’t go away /

ruin is the mayor cut-ting a ribbon made of smoke /

the senator calls it infrastructure & files a bill to rename the crater /

the priest calls it providence /the banker calls it liquidity & sells futures to vegetarians /

the general salutes a statue that has already excused its head

the children drag a lion skeleton down main street /

the teachers pass out maps with no borders left /

architects stare at blueprints full of holes & say symmetry is alive /

& the parade keeps moving but the drummer

has no drum & just bangs two broken doors together

ruin is not aftermath it is atmosphere /

it is the reprise played before the song bends the steel/

the orchestra tunes itself to fire alarms /

alleys sing like choirs without throats /monuments erase their own obituaries /

& everybody claps because they have nothing left to drop

the senator waves again: “look, progress!” /

the cop pets his horse /the shopgirl sells souvenirs /

the poet eats plaster & calls it sacrament /

the child holds up a brick as if it were indeed a dove

ruin opens its mouth & lets the bricks fall out /

crooked, burning /

call it love if you must /

call it ruin if you dare /

call it nothing & still it will get tangled in your hair

ruin touches everything here is ruin

The Festival Is Over

Our city blazes. Hell ignites our night,

Torch-shafts ascending, waltzing in the sky;

Bronze windows flare; anonymous, the cry

Of revel bursts the pavements, harsh and white.

But fire feeds also itself. Towers must burn,

Flay gay streamers; stuttering them to smoke.

Blacken stone lions’ cracking columns. Choke

On cinders, winds that wheel with each return.

Ash coils smiling up, scarifying stars,

The alleys writhe, each mask dissolved, withdrawn;

Gilt to black wick—the city’s past now mars

Its own façade, and silence climbs the dawn.

Yet out of ruin, one keen ember gleams—

One will, a shard, surviving other dreams.

Not Orpheus, I

How does the city sit solitary, that was

Full of people; widowed marble, pale with flame?

Queen among harbors, empress of all shame,

Bride of the burnt, sovereign of our loss.

No lyre remains. Its thrones are charnel gold.

Her dancers gone, the honeyed voices mute

Only the wind’s delirium through the chute

Of temples razed and columns numb with cold.

Not Orpheus, I—no backward-fixèd gaze,

No lyrist’s woe to petrify my feet.

I bear no song for shadows nor sing praise;

I gather up my remnant and retreat.

Let Orpheus linger, singing to the dust

Choose I the sea, the living, and the must