Long Etruscan Poems

Beginnings – Endings

Out of the darkest reaches of time and space
came molten minerals, gasses, rocks, comets
– life traversing aeons, in suspended animation
across millions of light years, billions of desolate miles
creating unseen universe after universe,
creating unseen...

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John: Sounds like I might like to straddle her equator with my meridian and throw down with a hula hoop on each arm. How soon can I execute my commission?

Mitchell: Do you like to eat...

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Happy two thousand twenty fourth  birthday Autumn - September twenty second

But first etymological climatological meteorological esoterica:

The word autumn (/'??t?m/) is derived from Latin autumnus, archaic auctumnus, possibly from the ancient Etruscan root autu-and has...

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Clemency is a quality that I never understood
until after I crucified the Cilician pirates on Pergamus,
amusing isn't it, that I see mercy where brutality stood,
Death has a heartbeat for all of us,
there's no greater mystery...

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To Mr. Otto Osips Ochs
My friend, the dream is exhausted
But as long as you chase it, I will follow
Mr. Dylan Thomas 
Perhaps destiny it’s self will spare us
To yours, mine, our struggle 
Their smiles
Here’s to...

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She calls herself Bunny Boucher, but she was born Veronica Chermak. She’s tall and leggy with a body that looks tidy, yet lived in. She’s high and tight, but flexible like a strong rubber band...

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my soul is the shape of a bloodstain
poured there by Nadine Maraschino
my right eye sits
in the ruby voodoo goblet
that she wears upon her head
Nadine was a 3-toed egg laying harpy
from the cauldron of shame
but she...

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Yes, I remember the day very well,
I left my cave in Cumaea for the palace of Palatine,
the sun was sullen behind a veil of volcanic cloud,
Tarquin, the final king of the Etruscan Romans
was handsome under...

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Auspicious wedding games played by Indian bride and groom,
Like finding names written on bride's orange vermilion bloom;
Searching the hidden ring out of thick turmeric water,
Or untying knots of bridal garments like a plotter...! 

Or the...

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She cooks fish and rice,
her unfolded hips
pushing all into place.
Oils, and aromas,
train buds to lap at shadows.
The marl of her hands
turns bowls of smoke
into lemon and butter. 

I won’t get to eat the spiced Mackerel,
but...

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Photographs, fragile as Dead Sea scrolls,
hold two of you, dead before my birth,
stiff in sienna spring, serious as scabbards
      on south Missouri farm.

Rosie: wind-hard in rock-scrubbed black dress,
stooped with thirteen...

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The existence of the Greek profile,
         the gods of Olympus...
        The Roman Nose Sculpture
      ...

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Dug out of an Etruscan crypt,
the sorcerer's eerie skull
will be used for an evil act...
amid lightening, darkness and gull.
The lad with frightened eyes screams
while they chant rhymes of a dead witch,
" Don't let me die...loose...

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Sautéed scallops on the skirts of Italy
Debutantes of a chardonnay shimmy 
Mediterranean terraces of broached stars
Gucci wallets moonlighting baroque hearts
Manolo Blahnik legs lavishly luring
High heel sculptures of effusive Etruscan art
Olive ties stirring perfumed Sicilian thighs
Inhaling...

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