GREAT CRIMSON LOTUS

(of post-modernism)

hungry spirits! ravenous hoo'd!
partake! partake!
in blackest midnight's
catfish stew!

and then the little sultaness comes in
smelling strongly of orchid perfume
and sits right down in the middle
of the realm before our eyes
(to play the piano)
singing along raucously with the troupistes:

Et erit vinum
post nostrum obitum

(singing loudly)(the list)
Pausanias and Pausanias
Attalus and Eurydice
Andromenes Jr. the Stymphaean
(Leonnatus) and Perdiccas
and of course
Philip

(but out in the garden)
two mantises come face to face
atop a stone
[as if in a theater]

(the little puddle of red ink)
before them all

and then it rains
and the madwoman looks up from her letter
to stare at me:

Es wird ein Wein sein
und wir'n nimmer sein:
drum g'niessn ma's Leben
so lang's uns g'freut!

(onward friends! on through the night!)

TO SAMARKAND! TO MARAKANDA!


https://www.facebook.com/lanny.quarles/posts/2124751847752777