Poetry of Issue #7        Page 28

Month of Your Shadow
For Donald Lev

Day of your shadow,
Month of your shadow,
Year of your shadow,
Age of your Shadow;
This your answer to
“The Darkness Above.”

After what seemed
An endless turmoil
With tremors of global disaffection,
No more leverage here
For you, Donald Lev:
Enid Dame can finally reclaim
The last great pillar that remained
From her and your joint legacy.

We have been over Edward Lear's
“Great Gromboolian Plain
To the Hills of the Chankly Boor”;
Donald, you have driven us there
Without even trying
To drive us there.

Rarely creating your own fantasies
Out of nothing,
But fantasizing over truths
And reality tidbits
Of the real world,
Thereby making them your own
And our own dreams;
Not just to smile,
But often to reflect,
To cry, wince, cringe, and guffaw
Through many of the bitter ironies
And weird juxtapositions
Discovered in life.

You have probed our private domains
Of presumed wisdom
With kinetic, yet ruminating observations
That confound a millennia of notions.
From cosmic aspects of baseball,
To the tragic ironies of Anwar Sadat;
From the woes of a young man
In drag on Sheepshead Bay,
To the eternal labor
Of ants preparing for war.
We are all ants, as you know, Donald,
And we're still preparing for war,
Either on behalf of our even more antlike leaders,
Or in revolt against them and their ilk.

For when we consider the world
That you have gladly left behind,
We can reflect with a kind of certainty
That this is a true and thorough
Dose of Halloween.

Now that your ironic namesake
Has trumped this whole nation
With unwitting diaspora,
Not stopping there,
But under the crude finesse
Of Tea Party marionette strings,
Has trumped the whole world
Onto that “Gromboolian Plain”
Of death, despair, and destruction,
Into that “Darkness Above”
Where a count (Dracula)
Can truly be a communist
And Father Divine, God Himself.

Donald Lev,
This is the dust
And this is the dusk
Of your shadow.

Whether the lungs of your brethren
Breathe long or brief,
Let's extend one final breve:
Two conjoined whole notes
For Enid Dame and Donald Lev.

  ronald whiteurs