The Eighth Day (With Heavy Hors D'oeuvres)

[to Ralph Waldo Emerson and all the poets before us]

everything has  been stolen

I said to myself

in a waking dream:

the sound of your own words

in a rushing stream 

the tempera sun from the baby's painting

before the paint has dried.

the moon behind the trees; the nursery snack and

fireside stories and other glories: thee and the

bridge that arched the flood's in a jeweled jail.*

mere beauty is derailed and made to serve

while the flood itself is squabbled over-

the laurel stripped from true competitors 

by the advance teams well on their way

and music's jerked from the music stand

in luminous auditions before your eyes

by illiterate juries compromised

before the scherzo's even finished..

while the cufflinks of the kings,

the signet rings on either hand

the very short reigns I understand

the seal on the books of the non-essential dead

furnish all endowments behind closed doors

scooped out like a Cracker-Jack prize

awarded to whom  they will,

razzle-dazzle!

with heavy hors d'oeuvres!!!

while poached like fish from a diamond stream-

fried up snazzy in a copper pan:

sizzle the redeemed,

the months from the calendar year

you counted on;

purloined, the baby's tear

and any dream you had.

someone's beckoning night and day

and highly paid for it, shoveling

pink night-lighted illusions

over the fiscal cliffs of home-grown Dread

they think they own-

riffing on freedom, not to be believed.

write what you know I write what

I see:  imagination's burnished towers stoned

and the fire of former poets trampled out

as though they had not lived and your own words

in their sunset's after glow alive, alive o

disgraced in school

or barred from the programs...

how long they have tossed like a greasy salad

this crumpled heart and more

on the horn of their new day

dismissing God from his own gardens

as if that were possible

mary angela douglas 20 october 2013

Note: the line: the bridge that arched the flood's in ajeweled jailis an allusion to the famous poem below by

RRalph Waldo Emerson, "The Concord Hymn"

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We set to-day a votive stone;

That memory may their deed redeem,

When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare,

To die, and leave their children free,

Bid Time and Nature gently spare

The shaft we raise to them and thee.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson