blackbird online journal spring 2002 vol.1 no. 1

POETRY


R. H. W. DILLARD  |  From What Is Owed the Dead

Canto

Granted, Ez, Monticello’s stables are nice
To visit, wouldn’t want to live there, but then
Spent no time in open cell or closed tent
Either, “Caged Eagle,” old buzzard, lamenting, ,
Your “twice-crucified” dead, chthonic tonic,
“H., M.” among the strewn corpses, the stench,
Mussolini poem was lost when the hard drive
Crashed, no great loss, always another sawed-off
Little Caesar around, hic, “Mother of God,”
Blacksmith’s spawn, rusticus ready
To fill the air with deception and betrayal,
Kiss the current Führer’s furry arse, that part
Of the job apparently not too difficult,
“Is this the end?” why is it, do you think,
That the silence of those final years rings truer
Than so much of all that village explaining? 

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