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.