Seige ll

On the great, Marquinia table, inlaid pink and orange, he tossed the mockery bearing the English queen's seal with its manifold stamps and fancy ribbons.
'Thanks. Thanks, thanks. Much indebted... Thanks for...thanks...thanks, thanks...etc.'
-Of course. Don't mention it.
The envoys, who delivered the parchment but couldn't read it, were feasting on plaice and drinking Sicilian wine in the hall, below.
But the sea was bristling with ships, sailing placidly to Genoa, Marseilles, and faraway Valencia, bearing wheat and spices from the Levant and slaves to London.

'Good riddance. And the vile language! Barbaric.

Well, there was lots to do. Old horrors fade before fresh triumphs.
Across the harbor the new city was rising fast. He, himself, laid the first stone. Would he live to see it done?
He doubted it. Not the way he felt. But, God willing, he would.
On the mantel the clock chimed six. Along the peninsula, from every little belfrey, swung a bell on its rung. Soon there were many, a chorus. They rang a whole minute, then ceased.
Old Valette liked the sound of the bells. He would have a little dinner, then go to bed.
'And, Oliver-'
'Yes, sir? '
'Go to bed.'

poem by Morgan Michaels
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Fifty Years On: for Bastille Day 2

Her hands behind her back were bound
as if they held a flower
Her cheeks were dry, her eye resigned-
it seemed an honest sorrow.
She seemed an urn of miseries
that someone overturned
some time before and just now drained
beyond the bitter lees.

At her back the sentries tramped-
(she didn't lack for footmen)
their muskets bright with bayonette
turned back the morning sun.
Around, behind the little cart
trooped citizons, newly coined
The shadows of their pikes and spades
fell forward on the ground.

Many in her could see the cure
to every ill that plagued them.

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Oracle

The oracle said we would lose, its message was very clear.
'Abandon the bones of your fathers, your lands, businesses,
Round up your children, gather what articles of worth
Might feasibly be carried on your backs and get the heck out;
For the foe', it said, 'will descend like a whirlwind
Drink your blood and impress who's ever left
Into the vilest servitude.'.
Most believed and prepared to flee. Only one wise, old woman
Reluctant to leave her potato garden, shook a wise, gnarled finger
At the crowd and demanded a re-interpretation
(Which, of course, she got)
'Clearly', said the divines, 'on reconsideration
The oracle meant just to foretell the destruction of the foe';
We, ourselves, had nothing much to worry about
If we'd only take heart, think and manage our resources wisely;
Talk to each other with an extra measure of politeness and agree to agree;
Oh, and build a fleet.
Such was the re-interpretation of the divines.
That was ten years ago. Putting our faith entirely in the oracles
message;

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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A Steeplechase l

I will pass you!
You won't!
I will beat you out!
Don't even think of it.
Out of my way, comrade!
Bloody bloke.
Mind the breach! Over. Oof!
That was a big one!
Onward. Onward.
I shall win, finally. I am confidant.
Not while I'm here.
I love you in the abstract but hate you face to face.
Take that!
Ow!
Bloody race. Bloody steeplechase.
My life is your death.
Your death is my life.
Disappear!
I won't!
Is this necessary?

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Velox amoenum...

It sometimes happens that great Pan
leaving Arcady, roams these gentle hills,
enchanting the kine and suffering no
dropp of wet or seering sun to vex them.

At such times the milky brides of the foul
billies go calmly athwart the deep groves
trustful of their Lord, rooting up weak
shoots of tender arbutus and delicate thyme.

Untended, then, the kids may caper
impervious of snakebite and Mars' wolf-
constantly assured by the blue, long, drawn-out
flute note drifting across the vallies, down the stony

slopes of listing Ustica. At such times, Tyn-
dares, I sense the god'slove-incense to
them these verses intimated by the Muse; and
that they spill from Nature's bountiful horn

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Show Tune #5

When you walked into the room
My heart hit the ceiling
You were the one for me, you,
There was no concealing.
Something in your smile I found
So endlessly appealing
You restore my heart to
Its era of Good Feeling.

There was a time...

Your pumps were so, so pretty
In all the sparkling city
Maybe the prettiest-
Nifty the way they fit you
And your dress of whitest eyelet
That swung about your knees
Couldn't hide, couldn't hide
What was inside, inside it.

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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A Visit From Diotima lll

MM Easy for you to say.
(a pounding at the door. Shouting from outside)
L Hey, cut the racket in there, I'm trying to sleep.
Third time this week! Do you know what time it is?
One more peep, I'll rip your eyes out!
MM Sorry, Louise, really. It won't happen again.
L Right! I'm calling the super, tomorrow...I mean, today.
It's time this building got a little pest control!
MM It won't happen again, Louise. Sorry.
(she leaves)
D So that's Louise. She sounds like a mob of one.
MM Yeah. Now are you amused?
D I hope so-I'm a muse, after all.
MM I mean as in satisfied. Louise was pissed and it's your fault.
D Excuse me? I don't know what you mean.
MM You were singing a little loud. Given the hour.
D Oh, don't try to put this on me! Fine, when you need me around.
But when I need you-it's MY FAULT.
MM Ssh, she'll be back.
D Wuss! Ask me if I care.You might cope with your neighbors

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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An Intruder 5 cont.

That night there was a terrible storm.
The winds whistled like bombs afalling,
Seeking but not finding their intended
Targets, then exploding anyway,
sowing fluid ruin. It was neverever still;
Rain pelted the windowpane
With individual drops that coalesced
Into shifty-eyed gremlins, flattening their
Noses against the glass, emitting their tongues,
Rapping and demanding entry.
Lightning ripped the sky from the Bridge
Of Brooklyn to the Heights of Inwood
And made the room momently bright
With flickering, livid pseudo-daylight. Profundo
Thunder banged a kettle, now and then
Or rattled heaven's bowl, or
Sang jagged basso in the unholy choir of elements.
Great, sturgeon-like winds swam north to south
Nosing around shreds of red-underlit cloud (presumably)
And slipping about the tops of skyscrapers.

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Secrets 2

And this secret is a humdinger.
This secret is an anaconda. It is the Great American Secret.
All other secrets beside it would seem trifles-
would be shamed back into their coops;
this is a secret of the most delicate sort
concerning as it does a certain person from the Bourse
(a junior vice-president for the firm of Valentino
who is generally acknowleged a non-pareil)
in relative standing to a friend of our dear friend Larry
A secret of treble import and viral ongoingness.
guarded still, but for the solvent of strong drink
and confided me by Carl-his be the shame.
This secret bothers me now-
Barks, bays, rattles its chain,
Paces, ticks the bars with its tin, making itself a nuisance, wanting out.
insisting itself innocent.
Can the secret be blamelessly outed
in the eyes of, say, Fate?

I recall now once having read

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Harpsong

Harpsong-
forbidden,
strummed in secret or plucked out
at the harper's peril, the strutting tunes, lyrical
lessons of musical hedge-schools; needed
treacle of weddings and funerals, '
thought Turlough O'Carolan,
gripping her mane
and bending his back to the back of the mare
bumpily trotting the bad roads
beside watery green
boglands and sea-lanes and fields of morraine
and peaks that, cloud dropping sheets on,
disappeared, to glimmer back into view;
Harpsong
plaintive water-patter
ceaseless as the dew-
lodged in the rains
and rising from rain-spatter;
To the west, the warmth of sunlight

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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