Prairie Falcon North of
Tulsa, in the Prairie Falcon’s winterland, Nature
for her Dust’s known, her Wind nail-hard, Tornado
skies. Passing thru
this Weathered Bowl, Night crept in, Shadows
rose––Beings long Deceased, Blue-Jeaned ghosts––A generation complete, American. How bad, I
realized, they must’ve suffered–Parents burying each other’s Immemorial Fright. Gone the Wild
Asters, six or seven feet in the air. James
Boys dead. No
immunity from old Boot Hill. On you, Rugged
Osage––Iron Tree of the Plains–– Antibodies
of Broken Men catch hold like feathers from Birds, lost in Dust Storm Clout. What narrow-tombed Hotel of black Forgetfulness is this Dust? This Life–– Magnolias, how
do they blossom come spring? Locusts know when to Devour a summer’s wheat? Why
Fascination for autumn leaves––other people’s death? Why Farmers
plant corn––have nothing to eat but Thistles & Dust on Judgment Day? How
compare that Dust? To
Karen Silkwood’s plutonium bologna sandwich? Dusty Hiroshima?
With slaughterhouse dust? Orange dust of Vietnam? Afghanistan Yellow Snow Dust? Mexico City smog? Kiev powder-milk?
Beijing rat-dust? Dust on banks of the Nile? The dust I sweep across my
floor? Indian’s Union
Carbide petrochemical dust? Rainbowed Rings of Saturn? Fish-strangling
Smokestack ash? No immunity.
Children, on red lilypads born, die in their Meat. No Liberty for
Power-Mongers to accord the Weak––as Grief’s
dark Cloud antibodies Human trials, no immunity in Cowboy Repo Gang–– The president
will get the Television Penalty. Everyone will turn off their Sets same moment &
he will disappear–– to his Antibody wed. Thus, Antibody
marries Nature––issues Sister. Brother. Issues Electraoedipus. Amnesia. Issues Death History Pain War
Madness Love Poetry Grace. Of these
Universes confined to Mortal Frame––no immunity all Bodies. Names. Fly Dust-Bowl Bound–– The signaled
Dreadful Track of April 14, 1935, from Dakota
to the Rio Grande–– New
Mexico was shrouded black, Arizona
thought the End had come. Oklahoma,
that she’d met her
Doom. Families
huddled in one-room shacks while Cattle smothered in hay-stacked barns. Fields &
Highways––beneath mysterious rippling Ocean Dust––even
Jalopies sank. Better
to die than’ve never lived, go back to the
People. No
immunity from Soups flavored with worn Belts. No immunity
for the Outlaw. The Page One journalist. Best young Center in the NBA. No immunity in
Boom-Towns. Space. In igloos.
Courts–– fear of Man is like a weed, a Dandelion on
the Road
down which none return. At Treblinka,
it led to the “Infirmary”––an Assassin’s bullet thru the Neck. In America––it
breeds the Death Machine’s Identity–– No Scarlet
Dawn unveils its Face. No antibody is embraced by Diamond Holy Dust. Is there no
Doctor in our House dares go back to the People? No immunity
collecting Bottles. Cans. Baseball Cards. Depositing
checks in big Swiss banks. No immunity in
Presidential Sandbox––how many bodies land-filled there? Polished Boots? Silent dumptrucks full of Ears? Let go Denial––no
Cock-pit automatic, Dunes of Araby, Military
Mainframe Underground––no Antibody there. Lives
past no les Real than Yours.
No less Primitive this Time than What Will be. Resent Man-Kind––you shit in your pants! Lay down your
immunity––Go back to the People––comes the Dawn for every I to mingle with the
Dusty Plain. Lay down
Futile Rage––Go back to the People–– better to live in Creation’s embrace. What Trust we
lack, Future Men require––more tender Hope
from one another than yet we know. Go back to the
People! Antibody’s message sent ESP via Pyramid of Light, to dispel Insanity’s
darkened Wedge–– Angelic
Rhythms High & Mild pierce Steel-Armed Memory’s frozen Cage. I have felt
the Great Dust Storm, seen my incomplete Reality. O Broken Wings––I
go back to the people, & in the God-Language
of my Plainsmen Heart There speeds a
Prairie Falcon to all who suffer. Independence,
Kansas 24 March 1987 [Published in Prairie Falcon. © 1989 by Jim
Cohn.] |
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