Bucolic Plague

I

Catamite bone fragments litter the soil beneath New Rome.
Naked ladies sway in the prairie grass
while Tityrus' pan flute whimpers,
"Amaryllis, Amaryllis, Amaryllis."

Blame the myopic patch eye for mistaking
a faux shepherd's swagger for a slouch.

We are all Galatea's slaves
bankrupt, discredited, consumed,
blinded by glass shards etched with false idols
seared by plasma bolts fired by inverted Olympus
deafened by sibyls screeches.

Sodomized lambs bleat
beneath four thousand miles of
interstate crucifixions.

The faux shepherd buries
their dismembered corpses under the soggy ash
stench of rotten chestnuts and desiccated apples
that rains night and day upon the fallow soil of New Rome.




II

Corydin stalks Alexis
downloads her image from MySpace
prints thirteen copies
cuts out the eyes
stacks the photos into a pyramid
lights a roadside flare behind
stares into the burning red orbs
and repeats to himself:

"May the Eye of Providence favor my undertaking."

Corydin wraps tree pruning shears,
six stainless steel dentist picks bought at the flea market,
a taser, rubber mallet, hacksaw, large roll of silver duct tape,
a collapsible shovel, and a machete
in a blue plastic tarp.

"Doesn’t Alexis know how much I love her?"

III

American Idol Panic:
Galatea, anorexic peroxide queen
draped with laurels and hyacinths,
spectacular "like a virgin"
loses to
Damon, pudgy Oklahoma goat roper,
oozy "star bungled banger"
on pan flute fashioned
from depleted uranium shells.

Panic in the lairage.

Galatea pegs apple at Simon
rips off floral robe
dashes naked across millions
of TV screens.

Panic.

In narrow carbide pens
ovine fixate on the spectacle
heed the bellwether clang
charge into thud of pneumatic gun
hoisted, thrown, cast, and cut
into prime, choice, good and mostly utility.

IV

Cumaean Sibyl
crawls from her volcanic cave
lacerates her breasts on ancient chert and flint flakes
wolf pups gnaw on her mangled teats

In agony the Sibyl
vomits the bile,
"Novus Ordo Seclorum."

Gilt age of New Rome
the Virgin impaled upon porphyry obelisk
holy infants
lambs of God
burst from her ruptured womb
spill into Saturn’s maw.

Starving wolves howl on the ash plains
all rib cage and gristle
thick grey rain burns into their pelts
till they too are ash.

The smoky quartz sun’s scythe
cleaves
the corpse of the world
stretched on core iron rack:

one last prophecy
as sage blow flies
and mage maggots
divine the marbled entrails
of New Rome.