Lingerie,
black pumps
a navel creamy enough
to drown a kitten--
the clothes assemble
in microwave fashion
--crackle of fire--
the silver pants zoom across legs
with curves so caress bound
a formula racing driver
might tumble.
As eyes rise
in jade lantern face
& hair is brushed
with all sheen aside,
the lady is more than
a Godiva
or Goldwyn-Mayer cinematic production,
this oasis of sparks,
twin peaks of McKinley-Matterhorn fame,
her calendar of words
pulling Oil of Olay
& perfumed honey thru
each studied remark.
[37]
PELÉE
The night before ...
sultry Martinique, a
tortoise shell cat
climbed, lap to pipe,
amid curbs of orange smoke.
2
Mount Pelée, a
smoking hard hat
with the candle-wax of longing
gutting in paraffin for
30,000 souls sent to the Crematorium
her harbour hissing
lava foam;
even coffee beans fused into
other metal bits, a
danse macabre twittering machine,
(nature au contraire),
tortoise shell improviso with
splotched colours weaving dawn's light
& feline crouching.
3
--the curl of her island's paws
lanced in heat,
brief wisps tugging Pelée's
synopsis (dark & smouldering), with
cat eyes glowing
up the mountain dark
into vegetative whiskers.
4
Pull of my pipe full leap of centuries
before the bite of the stem
dumped fire again
[38]
PELÉE: MAY 8, 1902
With the smile of morning
in her purse,
the dark laughter of her
cat napping
in the crevice, half-alert,
Martinique (angelique)
on padded paws
climbs from night.
I saw her hair-brush
the lava to warm the bay,
crinkle little St. Pierre
jammed into one
parking lot, volcanic embrace.
In the little museum
--the holocaust cenotaph--
Nature pared essentials to the bone,
a cauldron of smoke
peers from old photographs
to cement (danse macabre)
bric à brac ivy/stone and
coffee beans wedded
in grandeur
fission-fusion-froideur
resembling masses of bees,
grotesqueries & beards
upstaging even Miro & the distant surrealists;
where reality masked vampire fiction to
roll sulphuric heat toward belches of
St. Pierre's prison.
And Cygnet
(his name close in French to "Swan")
leg-irons)
(subterranean chamberling peeking out),
undaunted solitary survivor--
the bars on his charnel house
were the fingers of God
pointing the way free.
[39]