Manifest Destiny [c. 1970]
(A Maiden's Dilemma)

I

Once upon a time
In a place where
The people drank brandy and wine,
The people were easily smitten
By a lapdog or a kitten,
Or just by watching
The does run.

A fitting setting
This was a place where people pranced
A place to take a bucolic squat.
This was a place where people came to,
To experience a cognizant community.

The people cam(e) a lot.
Well, often enough--
And still do!

II

Abreast to the moon is the sky,
Feeding from the crest of dusk
To the crack of dawn.

Abuzz is a creaky river
Streaming consciousness,
Empathetic thinking,
Intellectual viscerality
Through the land that envisages
The desiccate delightfulness
Of the Winter's sough.

Above is a wreath
A Circle of Life,
Le Cirque d'Morte,
A remembrance of a gruesome tale
Of a fawn astray from the path,
Finding the edge of the road,
Standing at the threshold,
Pondering the Chicken Riddle
As to why, not how
The free range of crossing and
The worldliness of the koan
Enlightens the embodiment
Of getting to the other side.

III

The Lady who lords over the land--
A majestic ground, a real estate--
Private, pastoral, pictorial property--
A contrast of colors, coda, and composition--
Courtly visions viewing folkways
Demonstrating daubs depicting dabblings--
Classic residencies as natural histories
As seniors, as citizens standing stout
More so than a siring stallion ensconced:
Anthro-pomo, meta-morphic,
Parapsychological superstitious scene.

Her Majesty's role
In this tableau?
Circinate Society. Circa this Century
As indebted servant
(Not entitled or indentured).

IV

This is a matter of a
Still descending a staircase:
Her surreal fate to her surname.
This is a maiden's dilemma:
To make flashback fashionable;
To keep the farm fecund
Just as a Mother earths the fallow fields,
Or as a Captain who commands
Her intergalactic space-ship
Through the psychedelic.

This is her fairness.
This is her pride!

V

A mean business,
These Art Matters.
All this blackness
Over (a) b(B)eauty.