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Four Poems

2014; Boston University; Volume: 22; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/arn.2014.0022

2327-6436

Lawrence Dugan,

Cultural Studies and Interdisciplinary Research

Four Poems LAWRENCE DUGAN A Name for the Theater A theater needing a name for itself Became The University of the Streets— Strindberg, Williams, Albee— exploring all The old valleys of discontentedness, The flawed republic of a southern county, A Scandinavian town with one honest Man in it, places where the truth was frail, From courthouse to bedroom, the unnamed art Of staged confrontation, performed again In a large East Side basement before dark Semicircles of folding chairs. Afterward Couples and loners scattered down Tompkins Street, as hopeful a group of people As I’ve ever seen, open to the thought, The idea become possibility, That this time the show would be memorable, That the Swedish preacher or Southern poet, Even playwright X from Connecticut Would find a method of lighting the stage. arion 22.3 winter 2015 Ad Libyam The Romans brooded over her The other city across the sea That challenged them as nowhere else And left them staring out at the water As if she were a place within sight of the City Itself. They were appalled by what they heard Of her rites and temples, the terrible offerings To impossible gods, the sacrificial flames At times consuming even the priests In gowns of fire. Later Virgil apotheosized Her as The New Town built by Phoenician pirates But that was after it all happened as It was all ordained. By then Hannibal was dead, Dido a myth, the city flattened and ploughed And rebuilt after a hundred years, still a beautiful harbor Ringed by the Atlas mountains, revived as a merchant’s paradise, Proud of her silver coins with elephants stamped on them, Still facing the perfect enemy, the perfect sea. four poems 2 What They Thought of It The trap-door in its belly was seamless Invisible at a hundred feet The men inside as snug as submariners, Napping beside a rope coiled Like an umbilicus to lower them, Attuned to a simple ancient sonar, Waiting for the ping or tap freeing them Or the smell of smoke, a little at first And then a lot, telling them they were doomed. Children loved its massive oak hooves Carpenters admired its oaken sturdiness A sculptor marveled at the ears and tail A philosopher searched for an axiom; The aesthetes were appalled, right for once For the wrong reason. Matrons Fanned themselves and shrugged, glad They had missed the nastiness earlier that day. The politicians saw both sides of the question; And as the sun set the giant gift almost Seemed part of a landscape, a familiar monument Along a shoreline, close to the walls of a great city. As they dragged it through the bronze gates One wine drinker slapped another on the back. Lawrence Dugan 3 The Empty Landscape For centuries those paintings were crowded With saints, soldiers, prophets, Mother and Child. Then they were empty and dark, beautiful Landscapes of a Holland the Dutch painters Had never seen before, filled with sand dunes Rising in the center of the canvas, Black clouds over a wave-crested sea, a ship Leaning into the wind but manned by no one We can see, its pilot invisible in the landscape, A Dutch world barren of religion, free From the old narrative of the Holy Family escaping to Egypt an hour Ahead of Herod’s posse, a solitary Angel leading the way to the pyramids; Free from the crowd at the foot of the cross, The lamentation of angels, the Mother’s Sorrow. Now there is a dark windy day Standing on a dune facing the North sea Swelling under an empty black sky. The fall And rise of many in the House of Israel Is far in the past, the wind-tossed dune grass Looks rooted in the barren hilly sand. four poems 4 ...