Amusing some dark mistress of silence,
one poet sang the mirth of shipwrecks. But
witnessing the irreducible lives
sink beneath the wake of the ship of State,
your orison ends, ‘I am writing blind’...
ECHO
Favored in the heyday of the Huntress,
awaiting the caress of Narcissus,
you toyed with ghostflowers of the Horned God.
Then, suddenly, your laughter breached Her ear.
But what was Hera to you, ‘fairest nymph’?
Your prolixity bored and hindered Her
- those golden sandals of self-sodomy;
Her shearing trance as passionless as glass…
Now you mime insubordinate despair
- a mere refracted sound.
Your crime was mirth.
GLASS LIZARD
The redolent sea has vanished,
bequeathing starlight to perform
the seventh corporeal act
of mercy. Time sleeps in the wake –
wrests from giants Scepter and Isle.
Now you cock your head to ponder
abandoned shadows of hoof beats...
or the stoop of the sparrowhawk.
DESIRE IN THE HOURLESS HOUSE OF NAPLES
While the Hydra forever haunts his gaze –
like the flaming breath of the Cretan Bull –
he leans upon an undulating hip
a figure that stabs servile dreams to life.
Our hardened hero in silken marble
enters the portals Apollo gave me,
his loins of promise suffusing vision,
like vapor that rises and fills my brain.
Here, one fauns before such virility.
Son of Zeus: I become your ingenue.
DISGUISE
Spires in the desert --
adultery in stone.
Sending forth disciples
white as waterless clouds.
Spires in the desert –
Shrouded Angels of Light.
© 2001 Jeffrey C. Alfier
Jeffrey C.Alfier lives in Tucson, Arizona. He holds an MA in Humanities and has served as an adjunct faculty member of City Colleges of Chicago-European Division. He is a member of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and Phi Kappa Phi. His publications credits include Conspire, CrossConnect, Maelstrom, Mefisto (Italian), Niederngasse, Nieve Roja Review, Pif Magazine, Recursive Angel, Red River Review and Riding the Meridian.