These men are sated, satisfied, tried and true, censured and cinched, catalogued and decorated, and are those spurs on their jackboots too?

Botha proud like a superman, Allenby an Arabian beauty, half-horse, Smuts white as a ghost, and Field Marshall Haig right [...] ]]> Notes on a painting at the National Portrait Gallery, “Some Officers Of the Great War” by John Singer Sargent, oil on canvas, 1922:

These men are sated,
satisfied, tried and true,
censured and cinched,
catalogued and decorated,
and are those spurs
on their jackboots too?

Botha proud like a superman,
Allenby an Arabian beauty, half-horse,
Smuts white as a ghost,
and Field Marshall Haig right at the front,
front and centaah, SAH!!

Sargent made them round about life size -
22 men, hard, stiff,
behind them a gloomy looming tomb vault
or some edifice of state.
Top brass done up in the colors of sand,
of peaches, and leather buffed bright –
the hues of WWI –
and cadmium red kept well out of sight.

No related posts.

When I was in the jungle With you, at your mercy, I was afraid of you. Now here in La Ville-Lumière, Where no man like you has walked for 10,000 [...] ]]> TARZAN, MON AMI

How lordly indeed you are, my friend,
In the new suit from La Confection des Élysées.
How you honour them
By condescending to wear it.

When I was in the jungle
With you, at your mercy,
I was afraid of you.
Now here in La Ville-Lumière,
Where no man like you has walked for 10,000 years, now you are afraid.

You showed yourself to me, naked in your jungle – the only fearless man in all the world.
And now I see you, hackles up,
Moving from stillness to stillness like an unquiet animal.
When the marquise shakes your hand and says “Honored. Honored,”
You smell the blood on his
Breath, and you chill and wonder why no one else does. Are they all in league?
When the girl in service curtsies, says “Bonjour, monsieur,”
You hear her heart breaking, and you wonder why no one else does.

Return to the jungle my friend, out of this dangerous place.

Return to the tranquil jungle, under your mother’s canopy,
Where the names of things come easily to your mouth, where things are called what they are.

Every word of French I taught you – like ashes in my mouth.
I said “God made you a gentleman at heart, my friend”!
Dieu!
I feared you so.
I hoped to make you into something more like me. How could I know that I was making you More dangerous with every word? Injecting you slowly with urbane distemper,
Pasteurizing you with good intentions.
When tantor became l’éléphant,
Numa, le lion,
Hista, le serpent – per Académie! -
I turned the sweet opera of your world
into the jeers of packs of lunatics, the whoops and hoots of cannibals.

That you would save my life and mother me back to health and I in repayment, would set the dogs on you.

Forgive me, Tarzan.

There was a moment, mon ami, when you were almost saved.
Do you remember? Did you know?
I put on my helmet, ready to go,
Picked up my revolver from that wide table stump, the one I’d made my toilet table.
And – perhaps in fever still? – abruptly threw it into the brush.

I didn’t know why then.

But I know now. After that month with you, I felt so naked, vulnerable, like a baby cleaving to his rattle. I had to throw it away or lose all courage forever.

But you retrieved it for me.
You dived after it.
You put it back in my hand.
“Tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!” you chirped like a jungle bird, pressing the revolver on me.

And I accepted it.
I shouldn’t have accepted it, should I?
I ought to have thrown it again, farther still, and turned my back on you.
Should have run away down to the river and never seen you again,
Emerged from the jungle a better, braver man.

I waited for you to run away,
While hoping you’d stay
To lead me home.
Hoping – again, yes – that you’d do my work for me. Poor slave.

By nightfall, you had brought me to the Solomougou Post
Where the men smelled like bloody earth
And more vermin creeped than in the deepest jungle.
I held your arm.
Together we found a man who would take us down river next day.

All night you perched in a tree – do you remember? -
Watching the coolies, after hours, stagger and sing below.

On the river the pilot asked many many questions about the strange white man out of the jungle -
Not about me, one more European out of his depth – about you.
I answered them. I answered all his questions!
What a villain!
The gall I had to answer his questions about you!
Maybe I was fevered still. Not in my right mind. Not in my right mind.

Forgive me, Tarzan, my White Skin. Forgive me.

C’est une drôle d’idée – that you should be “White Skin”.

Among my shallow, colorless people, you are deep and black as your rivers, deep and black as your night,
Deep, black as the great expanse that cradled and suckled the world before the mind of Le Dieu blasted away all that was peaceful, wiped away all that made sense and was sweet and perfect.

I have a black top hat and a black coat. And in Belgium the winters are white and wide and cold.

The Africans, in those hell-squalors we saw along the river,
I swear I saw them shed tears at the sight of you.

I swear I heard them sing:

“Oh there goes an African. Africa has made that man. And only Africa made him. He was not deprived of his lordly heritage, no. No. He was rescued and exalted. Exalted by the land. Saved by Africa. Taught by Africa to be strong and wise and to hear all the knowledge pouring in like cataracts from within, from without. Oh, Africa, that unites spirit and mind. Oh, Africa, that unites heaven and hell. And, look, they are taking him away! And they are taking him away!”

Mon Dieu, my white ape.
I have returned you to the hands of your captors.
I have delivered you back into the clutches of the slavers.

Forgive me, Tarzan.
Forgive me, Tarzan.

No related posts.

I walked through the willows.I let them drape their sad arms overme, let their man-o-war tentacles ofdespair sweep me down.I let them drag themselves across me,I let them drag their long sad arms over me,I walked under their limbs and they did nought to me – did not destroy me, did not [...] ]]>

I walked through the willows.
I let them drape their sad arms over
me, let their man-o-war tentacles of
despair sweep me down.
I let them drag themselves across me,
I let them drag their long sad arms over me,
I walked under their limbs and they did nought to me – did not destroy me, did not take any thing from me,
They gave me nothing, they took nothing.
They were sad and beautiful,
and still they are sad and beautiful,
and I love them now as much as
before no less no more

No related posts.

Sauropod raking and hoovering delectibles from the lakebed making waves

Ceratops snipping sappy timbers like copper cables – the sound like a wrecked galleon’s masts cracking, knees popping.

Flatting Ptero knee-deep draws hissing fry up by the shoal. Sifts ‘em dry. Gullets ‘em. Would preen if it could.

And downwind, rapt by design, two tri-talon feet march in silent place waiting for the light to change, waiting for the go.

For more [...] ]]>

APEX

Sauropod raking and hoovering
delectibles from the lakebed
making waves

Ceratops snipping sappy timbers
like copper cables – the sound
like a wrecked galleon’s
masts cracking, knees popping.

Flatting Ptero knee-deep
draws hissing fry up
by the shoal. Sifts ‘em dry.
Gullets ‘em.
Would preen if it could.

And downwind, rapt by design,
two tri-talon feet
march in silent place
waiting for the light to change,
waiting for the go.

For more “Paleo-Poems” go to:

Related posts:

1. Ichthyosaurs Feeding
2. The Dinosaurs Have Vomited
3. CSI: Hell Creek

As he made into the open air,wing outstetched on one side,inadequate flapping handon the [...] ]]>

DAEDALUS WITH ONE WING

Wise Daedalus – with only one wing done -
fled before a mob
determined to string him up
and pinata the hell out of the man.
Running for his life,
he donned the single wing and,
triple-jumping to the cliff’s edge,
launched himself,
leaving the killers marooned.

As he made into the open air,
wing outstetched on one side,
inadequate flapping hand
on the other,

he well knew that all
the weight of science and reason
would not support him.

No related posts.

Cracked bones – long shanks – emerge from rust-strapped earth like a revelation by Nemesis, recalling hasty-covered violence.

Who witnessed the killer slamming home through the ribcage, shoveling the four tonne turkey up and over bloody tumbling talons kicking sky meat-cleaving jaw clashing a sirocco agony?

Who saw the killer figure eight its horns loosening the armored neck, for [...] ]]>

CSI: HELL CREEK

Cracked bones – long shanks – emerge from rust-strapped earth
like a revelation by Nemesis,
recalling hasty-covered violence.

Who witnessed the killer
slamming home through the ribcage,
shoveling the four tonne turkey
up and over
bloody tumbling
talons kicking sky
meat-cleaving jaw clashing a sirocco agony?

Who saw the killer figure eight its horns
loosening the armored neck,
for a locomotive coup de grace?

For more “Paleo-Poems” go to:

http://www.nealromanek.com/category/poetry/paleo-poems/

Related posts:

1. Ichthyosaurs Feeding
2. The Dinosaurs Have Vomited
3. Apex

This sea at the shore of seas,Where other seas begin,Where is conceived the great Pangaea of seas. Panthalassa!that stretch three quarters of the way into the future,

This sea,pubescent,Horny and tempestuousAnd desiring increase at every level,Ingenious and bursting at the seams,Throwing up all kinds of mad ideas,Shimmying, shimmering with milky life,Not yet [...] ]]>

Ode To The Primordial Sea

This sea at the shore of seas,
Where other seas begin,
Where is conceived the great Pangaea of seas. Panthalassa!
that stretch three quarters of the way into the future,

This sea,
pubescent,
Horny and tempestuous
And desiring increase at every level,
Ingenious and bursting at the seams,
Throwing up all kinds of mad ideas,
Shimmying, shimmering with milky life,
Not yet self-conscious, unshy,
reckless
Grand-roiling stinking-green and then some,

What joyful
possibilities and probabilities
You had, before rhythm and the seasons
And the practice of five hundred million years
And filling the forms
And seeking your own level
And overthinking it

Brought you to
that staid middle age
In which the best trick
You can conjure
Is a mere blue whale.

—

No related posts.

—

read all 12 Poems Of Joy Share this post:

No related posts.

The survey I readSaid twenty.

How do they know

Where one laugh ends,The next begins?

Can the animals be taught to laugh?

Can machines be?

Or what about weeping?

To hear my lady laugh recallsThis world is in every way perfect

—

read all 12 Poems Of Joy Share this post:

No related posts.

Or am I being melodramatic again?

—

read all 12 Poems Of Joy Share this post:

No related posts.

Rolling up his sleeves, he [...] ]]>

IX

Van Helsing unfastened the coffin lid,
peeled the crucifix from the bone-white brow.
He pulled the garlic from the rust-flecked mouth,
careful not to touch the teeth.
He stitched back on the severed head,
and he blotted up evidence of Holy Water,
and, full of care, he heaved free the hammer-frayed stake,
like Excalibur from the nameless stone.

Rolling up his sleeves, he said:

“Now here comes the hard part.”

No related posts.

She told me her family secret,and I made a joke of it,and we laughed.

She spat and snarledand made claws.I shrugged and looked away.

God, how can I ever atone for my sins?

—

read all 12 Poems Of Joy Share this [...] ]]>

She looked at the floor and wall and was uncomfortable,
and I did not smile.
I did not say her name.

She told me her family secret,
and I made a joke of it,
and we laughed.

She spat and snarled
and made claws.
I shrugged and looked away.

God, how can I ever atone for my sins?

No related posts.