The Five Stages

II. Anger

Maci Branch

Jan 17, 2022

Jericho Brown needs Ezra Pound

To confound his meaning

With vanity of Imagists

So profoundly singing

Of a royal purple Sunset

That means nothing at all

Frying our fragile atmosphere

With all the colors of fall.

Ezra’s meaning builds gas chambers.

Somehow, doesn’t detract

The fact that Ezra’s plowed flowers

Still pen Cantos that slap.

The opposite of rape is asking for it,

Ask and you shall receive.

Though, wishing is a cautious exercise

Whose labor grants no reprieve.

Jericho Brown needs Ezra Pound

To confound his meaning

Of poppies grown in Flanders Fields

So profoundly singing.

Odysseus strings his bow

And lets the arrows fly

Against these Sun colored suitors.

His home is much darker than mine.

I was raped at my Trojan school

Where the boys watched and laughed

As I fought that fat faun,

Helen was born in that blood bath.

Here is Achilles in disguise,

Whom Odysseus seeks,

Hidden in girl’s skirts, fair of eyes,

Craving the sword for many weeks.

So, I forget my rapist’s grasp,

Which means nothing at all!

While men tremble before my cry,

Bleeding colors of fall.

I forget standing high and proud,

Laying Hector down low,

Baptized in blood I am washed clean!

The duplex neighbor knows.

Distinguished beauty from sublime

Burns the tiger-lily, blazing bright,

Faces big fear in pounds of snow,

And embraces the Absurd tight,

But through the forests of the night

The tiger stalks his prey

While falling to hunters’ nets

And now so few remain.

Meaning is for Joe Exotic.

He sees beauty enraged

With feeling erotic

Pounding this Pisan cage,

But Philistines play with flowers

Behind black mirrored walls

Zoom room echoes when poets speak,

They’re chasing waterfalls.

The tiger lily burning bright

Is not contained by words

Which are encaged in meaning

Like some pretty birds.

The tiger lily’s bright meaning

Shines with or without us

Like all those shining stars out there

With no life and no fuss.

From the gang called Bigger with attitude

Comes a track that snap bitches back, oh snap

Comes a smack that snaps Bessie’s back, ker splat

But Bigger Thomas, he so bad, like Shaft

But figure honest with the lad, and laugh

At the sainted martyrs like plowed flowers

While blazing Tha Carter speaks to power

Singing ra ra like a London Dragon

Shrieking ra ra like a Waste Land Dragon

Ya’ll don’t want to hear, you just want to dance.

Who could blame ya’ll for just wanting to dance?

So, DJ, play me something to dance to

Yo Dre, play me something to dance to

From the gang called Bigger with attitude.

We dare make Dylan Roof a native son?

Defiling a house of God with murder

But met with murder like Darren Wilson

Whose acquittal’s good faith goes no further.

We dare make Michael Brown Mary Dalton?

To sell the lynch mob a most just lynching!

As these house slaves for the house of Walton

Consume the food, games, and every stitching

of clothing bought from field slaves over seas.

Slaves of the Roman cross and starved lions,

Whose masters are slaves to all industries,

Yet, the baby bites the tit while crying,

And takes the street chanting Black Lives Matter.

The white faces in black paint sound madder.

Sing O’ hypocrisy of say his name.

Of Michael, Trayvon, Tamir, and Sandra

Not Michelle, Chynal, Brooklyn, or Dana.

But kids sing along to Colt Forty-Five

As Nas spins a track, New York state of mind,

Nasty singing, “life’s a bitch then you die,”

Fascists singing, “fuck that bitch then you die,”

All coppers are bastards, so the song goes,

But who you gonna call? So the song goes,

There ain’t no ghosts here buster, just us men,

Fear paints those notes yellow, busts em again.

And you know he got that dick in his mouth

Eddie Murphy got that back at the house.

Sing O’ hypocrisy of say his name.

The Philistines cry, “its come tumblin’ down,

This God of pathetic Jews

Conform to sabbatical old good news!”

Yet the Israelites go marching on

Tired with all these, from these would they be gone

Tired with all these, for restful death they cry

For needy nothing trimmed in jollity.

Yet, Jericho’s Philistines shake the spear,

While our veiled Rahab herself, quakes with fear,

Seven horns in rows of two, marching on,

Seven horns in rows of two, marching on.

Their brass trumpets blare a terrible sound,

That bring ol’ Jericho a tumblin’ down.

My chariot drags this corpse seven times,

Round and round the walls of ol’ Jericho

This ain’t the Bible, it’s the Iliad

Yet shining Hector’s gleaming horse tail helm

Lies in a shattered visage in the dust

Behold these great men and despair, poet!

Achilles’ shaking spear pierces Hector’s heart

My chariot drags this corpse seven times.

Wen r Bard’s hom ws splt n tu

N cuplets, tu by tu,

Thees leeric ballads tu by tu

Frm ths tru seenging blu

He ws seenging blu fer tru

Th Bard noz wat to du

Th Bard sang of wat to du

Forteen lyns crown sumting nu

Forteen lyns sang sumting nu

Under pownds of sno

Biggr fear of pownds of sno

Caged in Pisan Inferno

Pound’s flesh Inferno dru

Wen Shylock’s hom ws splt fer to

I hold the winnow fan of pond’rous flame,

This ships oar, for whom I have journeyed far,

By order of Poseidon’s ocean reign

To bring the sea as far as wand’ring star.

Marcus Aurelius counts up the pounds

Whose virus caged us all for Pisan songs

Where Eleanor sings alone reaping crowns

In all the languages of the eons.

Man, and ship destroying Eleanor sings

Of many ancient and forgotten lands

Of crusades, blood, slaves, and the right of kings,

Nightingale among Arabian sands.

Now in misty Albion she reaps grain

And holds the winnow fan of pond’rous flame.

“Revolution is not a tea party!”

Spoke the Chairman to the people’s people,

Stamping the scrolls of the elder Lao-Tze

From a tankie position so feeble

Spoke the Chairman to the people’s people

Let all the peasants eat this army steel

From a tankie position so feeble

That denies Tiananmen Square is real.

Let all the peasants eat army steel

Whose starvation crushes marching students

And denies Tiananmen Square is real

While Newton’s Panthers grin and say, “prove it,”

But starvation crushes marching students.

Revolution is not a tea party

And Newton’s Panthers grin and say, “prove it.”

Stamping the scrolls of the elder Lao-Tze.

Jericho bleeds all the colors of fall

Men and women, young and old, put to death.

Rahab’s women, not too old, steals the breath

Of the usurer’s spies of tradition,

A sacking ‘s no good for her condition.

So, the trumpet blows when the man says Shout,

The Isley Brothers know what its about.

Go ahead, try to understand these rapes

Even Jericho signifies these states.

My mom and dad say abortion wrecks us

While Sandy is singing back in Texas.

Our son Bigger Thomas bleeds hecky naw.

Bigger Thomas ain’t shit,

and it is cruel to lie

while Brooklyn’s bad wig lies bloody

in the gutters of Kansas City

while the help pulls out all the stops

blaming everything on the cops.

But racial profiling is real

and unjust stops for leaves of grass

betray our proud promise

of a nation built by songs.

For this, the blame will never stop

blaming everything on the cops.

Bigger Thomas still ain’t shit,

and it is still cruel to lie

to protect someone who knows what they do.

How else will Bigger learn anything new?

So, this poet rages a fool,

while Bigger Thomas plays it cool.

Purple sunsets turn black as coal

With Alice down the rabbit hole

E.P. loses spelling Bees

With Alice down the rabbit hole

If you prick us, do we not bleed?

While Alice is down the rabbit hole

Jericho Brown needs Ezra Pound

But Alice is down the rabbit hole

Don’t talk about their mental health

With Alice down the rabbit hole

Flying over the cuckoo’s nest

When Alice is down the rabbit hole

Israel fights Palestine

With Alice down the rabbit hole

Singing usura loves the Jews

And Arendt’s down the rabbit hole

I just think the song sounds neat

Sweet Alice is down the Rabbit hole

Said the joker to the thief

With Alice down the rabbit hole

Old Henry’s rabbit breathes free air

Yet Alice is down the rabbit hole

This sumbitch bunny sho’ is white

Why did Alice go down the rabbit hole?

Mr. Bones mad hat minstrel blues

Sends Alice down the rabbit hole

Joshua walks around Jericho

And Alice is down the rabbit hole

Marching down the philistines

With Alice down the rabbit hole

As for me and my house

Let Alice serve the rabbit hole

Seven days, couplets two by two

To get Alice out of the rabbit hole

Jericho Brown needs Ezra Pound

Befo’ Alice gasses the rabbit hole

I wish to save Bigger

But I pay the grave digger

I ask, “how do negroes live?”

As I pay the grave digger

I drink whiskey and you carry me

But please, pay the grave digger

Am I allowed to say, “I liked it rough,”

When you paid my grave digger

Bessie and me, are drinking tea

Up here with the grave digger

Save Bigger for my Stranger’s noose

and send him to the grave digger.

My breath reeks of our red broken promise

That offers the blood of Bigger Thomas

The Elegy of Mary Sue

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