INTERVIEWS
RALLY

Above snowbanks of flowering pear,
maple shards glare white
as the faces on the courthouse steps,
where ranks in flag-striped t-shirts sing.
An inch of ice six weeks ago
and half a state in dark
silence couldn't stop
the endless streaming war chant.

Now river birch bleeds from broken limbs,
brush piles of redbud stacked beside the curb
put out thick bloom. A robin's built her nest
in there, set her clutch of sky-blue eggs
low and open, waiting for the chipper.





CHARITY'S PHILIPPIC

No one can go before me with a brush
to clear my path of ants my feet
might crush. I am a democrat.
I must bear my own bloodguilt
--and that of any sweepers in my hire.

Give me then an infinity of brooms,
each sweeping the path of the one behind.
Piety runs in a straight line
out around the curve of space
into a circle of Vestals
to tend the holy fire of state.

Mars got Rome on a Virgin
Jehovah got the Vatican
And the progeny of all that rape:
ultrasonic bombers, winged chariots f
from which any mother's child
can thunder from the sky
a rain of fire on this day's Sodom,
Troy, Carthage.
leave only rubble and salt
for an eternity of tears.

But oh yes I support our troops,
bear in my dreams the weight
of their killing, their being killed,
as Mary holds through the millennia
the dead weight of her son.
She did not want a suicide warrior or a god,
only a carpenter to repair the doorsill.





MORAL CLARITY

Light is always high noon here,
lines plumb-bob straight,
the Shadow small and neatly triangulated,
forced to stand at the wrong end of Main Street
in his black hat
so our reluctant gentle sheriff
can shoot him dead.

The line between black and white is crisp
and draws the eye to our blonde Charity
who stands in the door to welcome us.
Or is she there to keep us out?
Who is meeting behind that drawn curtain?
But don't think of that.
The focus, as I said, is on our Charity,
elegantly tall, starved to perfection.





PRODIGY

If that other son returns
not to console but to scourge,
to separate docile sheep
from alien-eyed goats,
with a word to melt
the flesh of non-believers like lava
from their bones,
then I will place myself
among the sinners
and be grateful for the heat.
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