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Shards, and: Last Call (For Dizzy G)
- Prairie Schooner
- University of Nebraska Press
- Volume 79, Number 4, Winter 2005
- pp. 52-54
- 10.1353/psg.2006.0024
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Prairie Schooner 79.4 (2005) 52-54
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Shards, and: Last Call (For Dizzy G)
Timothy Liu
Shards
a kore holding a dove at her breast
a landscape thronged by well-to-do expatriates
a naked rider wearing a wreath of oak or wild celery leavesan apotropaic character about our boy
an apple for the goddessfrom double volutes sprout robust anthemions to crown the desecrated graves
herms erected at the crossroads
in a market where zucchinis are sold with their flowers still attached
in the so-called dexiosis where the dead are shown shaking handsluxury's disaster zone
no longer up for the challenge that love entailed
the miasma of the dead an offense to this sacred precinct
the pronounced ithyphallic feature (broken off) pointing to its cultic character
the town built up harborside around a crusader castle [End Page 52]
Last Call (For Dizzy G)
if you don't yet thirstfor the sweat beading
on his lip darlingyou've already
missed it what's seen
is gone the pennantlost pent-up rage spent
on pleasure's idle
dregs storming a stagewhere the matinee
idol lingered faceless
fans jitterbuggingthe aisles dreams
fired through the mind's
electric grid trainsof thought uncoupling
our truest loves
never contractedfor exacted labors
however devoted
or disturbed drink [End Page 53]into the far-off
zenith uncontested
scat loading downyour money bags
left at some hotel
you've never checkedinto your father's
famous fudge packed
in Christmas tinsdemanding nothing
less than freedom
from the tyrannyof his unsung chords
...