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Twilight of Idylls

Persephone’s brow like brimstone and mica

lingers longer to await a bovine tug,

robes fall around her, naked flies dance

circles from her hair with strength to rule swarming

trojans, felled likewise, bush-hogged —forests are

cleared for the mall, collapsed and mauled, a tinderbox

her touch, dancing with straw arms spread in agony,

a wardance and song, shouting, one hundred feet tall,

a suburb falling hollow like Eliot’s man,

make-up smeared, car ports smothered,

a Dick Van Dyke apocalypse hovers,

waking the crooning sneer of wild-eyed

Calypso, hungry for those raked beneath lotus

and sleepy soapy dreams, ivory and crest, a

zestful dove dials alone for land, waxing Ulysses’ gourd,

homestyle and spun; plumed cap of Cadmus watches

gleeful from a bulldozer’s lens, stirring a stew

pitchforked lentils, and picking tender bones

to feed on afterwards in the House of Somnus,

an Aegean sleep —

Ophelia’s desperate dream gone bankrupt,

and Dylan Thomas’ raised eyebrow

on a stainless steel swivelchair.