WHO WON?
In the USA the cowboys won
In Ukraine, the Cossacks won,
without their horses braying, lost to the horse-thieves,
they can blame the gypsies, the tartars, the Russians they can sway
with their accountant’s ciphers,
with their emperor’s and empress scepters–
those same stokers of the old ovens
they used on Jews and gypsies in Poland,
where the Polish Pope’s chosen poets voted
and got voted in this Gregorian year of the shoe and the shooed.
in Brazil, the pool-boys won,
or pretended to, with plump law-suits, talk show hostesses
overthrowing the lioness
into the salt quarry, their legs filled with injections
anointed evangelical crusaders Cariocacasino-floormen,
they who got free tickets to Siegfried and Roy,
despised the pettier gamblers, who believed Ave Maria and amens
would help them with the Merida sports lottery.
In Argentina, the polo boys of good times and genocide
and the officers wives’ club
In Beirut their sits an old Maronite general of piety
Christian who kisses the bone relics
of a saint contained in his finger-ring,
as he were his friend Raul, the Palestinian deacon of murder in Chile,
as if he were the Polish Pope,
who secretly won as well, in Poland,
beatified, and well-behaved
heads shaved.
In Dominican Republic, DR
the enemies of Vodou,
liberals who fear Voudou even more than the French do
In Egypt, the Chileans won
In Peru, the daughter of a private oven-owner
half as rich as Yamaha and Suzuki, Nissan and all the sons
of the seven Samurai and all the sons of bitches.
In Philippines, the Manilan who first drank the poisoned
veins and mouth-masks of opium-eaters from his baton-stick,
now cannot get enough soma, like the Pusher-man
of all Pusher demons, he won, and drinks ambrosia
from a jar of the severed and pickled lips of the soarers.
He wants to make Pure
In Israel, to the surprise
of some,
he who won claims to be the son of god resurrected
to designate hell and the shadow of Ariel,
son of Ariel, meaning Lion
and Son of a Bitch, the breed mixture
is perhaps kosher
Judaism permits these beliefs, perfectly well,
but only when hell is rigged, surrounded by dirt and blue skies,
or a fine carpet, a la Cannes.
In Turkey sits a man with a penchant for ham and bonanza
before national address on the Kurdish question.
He admires Rommel, but only for his strategy. Hitler had the ideology of the two.
In Palestine, an accountant won. Maybe from Canaa.
Wall of Jericho sounds like a casino automaton with German jerry-can for light
under the diminished super moon
and a Hebron pool-cleaner prays to the East direction, pointed to on his digital phone.
But the moon of the calendar refuses to shine for illiterates
out of cyclical time and off melody, commedia dellarte
as Ensor painted it, envisioning cyclical nature of hell
and the leagues of intentions, Protestant and liberal merchants, have abolished purgatory everywhere except here.
