The Nine Solitary Plasters of a Comedy

1

The pilgrims delayed on the bridge, dream

with the cows scratching ribs against two fir trees . . .

a tablet, an old board with a fresh plaster

of ground bone, horse and rat, anniversary

of the red brass stylus making cones

of weird accents, angels

with brilliant foreheads and large ears,

Giotto asking if it was the ugly baby

who farted, Beatrice

decomposing under a June sun, haystacks

burning off on the hillside

like cantos . . .

Dante runs a stylus

through a wet plaster of bone

the ninth hour to vespers . . . all comedy

needy of serial cartoons of slate

waxed with sun, composing in bone, a sulphur rain

without benefit of notes . . . then he’s

also dead & gone.

2

It was like that, winter slats

seconds apart. The cook wearing socks

on his breasts he could cut

chops from the lamb, yes salted

for legatees and popes most of them

stationed in hell with worms for curls

bawling at the turquoise soprano wired to the ceiling.

The army of the horizon speaks in Greek,

then in Latin, he cooked first

for the brothel in Florence, and then for

the army that spoke French when bargaining

for women who needn’t cook lamb.

Full centuries of it. Just like that! Shit!

Crushed cinnabar, the red mineral & more sulphur.

The very complex afterlife of a small bee box, winter slats

seconds apart . . . a small bee box and quinces on each yellow mark . . .

3

The children being led through fog

in purple and green shrouds. The ghost

of a woman sitting there

so dead she seems

not to be naked. He wakes

with her hair in his mouth, a mistake

of selves . . . last night’s wine off

the shelf. The cold rain of Provence

washes her body warm like piss.

Frogs falling out of the cumulus. All the foxes

of the district with mange

like the fallen boudoir sofas of Clement.

4

The three mouths of Lucifer

speaking at her forehead: Greek,

of course, Latin hallucinating

French with gutturals of purple grapes. The cook

speaks Italian to the mice—necks broken

flies at the eyes and mouth.

The cook is stirring blood noodles, 3½ years to the false moon,

hot plasmas spooling off our sun

struck (one potato, two potato) on the occluded side. The jet

of platinum flame in the icy lecture hall

on a revolving cue ball. Laughter.

The gypsy elder in a Ravenna tea shop

whispering to the fat cop

he’s from 4 years in the future. Laughter. Again,

the bishop’s fresh radish plate of noodles

with boiled eels.

6

Many white hands like leaves reaching out of the darkness

that che il tacere è bello (her body, unsayable)

a dignity of conifers along the horizon

evil words issuing from the very few abstract men

who wear the simple wimple. Beatrice. Then. Beatrice.

The cold fog returning with the children, one shroud

almost radiant. He looks up at the cook with disgust,

“The politics is much easier than the women.”

7

Dante dreams the orchard ladder is slimy

with chalk and snails. The chalklime was there to poison them.

The old cook praying to Jesus to forgive him . . .

a quick sunrise and Dante wakes with fever . . . a breeze lifting the curtains

as if beseeching him “che il tacere è bello.”

The mother counting coins in her blue apron

smiles like the sky and evaporates. The fever,

he believes, is abating. In the shadows the future pastor

St. John, pissing against the wall of Diogenes that crosses the scholar’s room,

is holding another candle to the morning. And the fucking

exile begins again . . .

The hawk’s beak dipped in snow for the quelling

of himself alone. With the apple tree

as the first and last notary. The seal

is stem and the spiral worm

that is rain-wrapped about it. A whole stem

that follows to its female gasket.

And an electric bird cage hanging by a thread. The fat cop

interviewing with Guelf mind the irritable bowel

of Clement five, dead now

to the obvious temptations that might be a child’s drawing

on a window of early morning frost: the numb finger

a broken pencil. Macaroni boiling in the loft.

The child’s portrait of himself as hawk.

8

The manuscript buried in the cupboard wall,

the urine steam of a manger,

the rose is a moving diagram

of should, not always. Love

generalized across a naked shoulder,

the shoulder generalized across another’s,

baptized, in the moment, a bare leg

gently falling to the floor. Laughter.

9

& more laughter. The

doves rising in morning light.

The light falling to the earth

as plaster to the boards. A poet’s

brass pencil, hand shaking,

the simple collection of nails

making passion, ink and a blood-

soaked linen. Virgins with lamps

spending dumb light on them.

A silent mewing of cows and shepherds

in more simple adoration.

The sun sinking also . . .