Aircastles & Their Construction Costs
Hacken Main Page > Poetry Index > 1990s > Aircastles & Their Construction Costs
(Description of a 16th Century Miniature)
is this
the chariot of god
clattering across the cobbled clouds
of 1534?
a renaissance pastel winter
framed by fattened archways
studio-gilded in antwerp
(breviarium grimani)
windowing the spaces of faith
which hopes for charity
god (sacred)
sits in a wagon
whose canvas flaps
serve as banners
to parody mother courage
and her commodities of comfort
in a fiction yet to be writ
his right hand held (on) high
gives the handsign of love
or does it enumerate
the number of his beings ?
his nongress across the skies is drawn
by two spirit texaco pegasi or pegasees
with wings attached at the mane
(but harnessed all the same)
melord's in harness too
tied between azure
and diluted spirit white
that washes clean
beside shielded stern lions
(their coat of arms
brag of one
who measured god
for all time
above
the lowlands)
light rushes to greet the prime mover
via stars whose rays
are white birds with wings
cruciflecting:
birds of darkness
until golgotha's cross
becomes bethlehem's star
linden crowns of icebent trees
wave while he passeth
all understanding
and a steepled church
an ass climbs before the whip
to carry market grain
uphill
behind a closed gate
closer to now
sheep on sheep
sit on straw to survive
a woolen harvest
one sow roots in melting sludge
note: magpie pecks her back
hens of plenty stand accustomed
on pegs of the self-soiled ladder
marks of three kings chalked
upon the dwelling
fade
baltha... melchio...
from epiphany past
pater smokes
and mater
her skirts just so
spins yarn and
the chestnutheaded child (profane)
hoses the snow
honestly
yellow before the threshold
marking territory from beneath his skirts
the rooster hops away
to find his motivation
the gray cat observes
shawl-wrapped
grandmother trudges the mammal pens
a mary gone wrong
whose fear of god
is fear of living
holding fingers to her mouth
like a disharmonica
later this print later later
will lie horizontal on the counter
of a Belgian shopkeeper (1866)
whose mouth
drips chocolate
nougat
until lip droppings
strike brown between the henhouse
and the axle of god
- richard hacken
Hacken Main Page > Poetry Index > 1990s > Aircastles & Their Construction Costs
