Really an experiment as well as a scream. I haven't tried to write with
"connective tissue" in years and I have a feeling there are lots of torn
ligaments and popped tendons around here. Flaws and all, I just need to
dump the damned thing.
Ken
THE PESTILENTIAL SONATA
"Hon, this is the South, cholera has always
been a part of life here."--paraphrased from
Wendy Taylor Carlisle
Maybe it will be cholera after all,
a Water Musick to accompany a shrouded gondola
on the swill canal made in mockery
of the peril-mocking city--
a plague to scrub the parishes,
double over the citizenry who cave,
hit in the gut, but who shrugged,
took their chances because they loved
the benighted place they knew might kill them.
They loved, and who are we to argue with Love?
Maybe plague will come: bubonic, pneumonic,
breeding among the rats that gnawed
on the half-submerged In Loving Memories
in neck-deep water and September heat.
Go head, mes amis--let your imagination
run to riot: that is why the city was made,
for dream-trips through desire
even if the outcome was surely cemeteries
and the Elysian Fields.
It seemed like a giant pinball game,
its flashing lights now shorted out,
knowing now only how to tilt,
even perhaps to capsize.
No one will have to say "Bring it on."
Guests need no invitation beyond what
we've already dispatched.
No RSVP required, though it is courtesy
to send a response.
Screams are always appropriate
even if they will be ours.
KTW/9-9-05
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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