I
MADAME BLANCHARD: WOODCUT
The hero can prove what he is only by dying.
E. H.
Whatever spectacle the crowd came for
They were not disappointed when,
‘Small, ugly, nervous,’
She ascended into Heaven in
A rain of gold. Antiphonal
To their polite applause, the ballast spilled
Glistening, earthward; Madame sailed
Serenely in her gondola
Slung from the great balloon.
And then
Up from that sea of faces welled
A murmur like the sea’s, the gasp,
The soft release, of wonder at
Her fiery arabesques across the air
-Not understanding what they saw
Until too late: balloon and gondola
Alight, and angels all around
Exploding bright, disguised as Bengal Aares-
A cynic wrote: she was a shrew,
Petulant, full of groundless fears,
Who sought the Empyrean to
Elude the landlord and the dun.
An unknown artist, who was probably
Not there, outlined her unavoidable,
Final, dramatic moment: like
A comet, Madame flashed above
The Paris roofs; then fell and broke her neck.
2
ARTHUR RIMBAUD: DRYPOINT
Discarding the exotic face, forked tongue,
And cloven hooves, Rimbaud put on
The apron of reality to play
Grocer, but unsuccessfully.
When innocently once upon a time
He’d planned imaginary crime,
Just so the literal police,
Taking his fictional for real,
Arrested him and put him in a cell.
3
EARL DENMAN: PHOTOGRAPH
Who then can be saved?
Matt.: 19:25
In an age dedicated to success,
Gentlemen, I present
Earl Denman, destined to spectacular
Failure.
Under a waning star
He drew his first breath of dissent.
His photograph, clipped, British, and moustached
Gaunt with self-pity, eyes us unabashed,
Repeating, “There is something pitiable
About our age.
Once, and again,
He challenged Everest and lost,
A tiny, ineffectual
David, who can no longer still
The giant’s boast.
He teaches by example how
To avoid becoming a hero. Never he,
Only his balaclava cap
Ever achieved the mountaintop;
Presented by him to his Sherpa guide,
It rode to triumph on the fellow’s head.
4
BILLY THE KID: STEREOPTICON SLIDE
Here are two images, distinct
Down to the diamond stickpin, that will not
Merge: Billy, is this a joke
Like the one you played on Grant to win your bet?
Or a game of frontier patience, you, concealed
Within these pictures of yourself, the twin
Sides of your coin, in ambush like the time
You dropped Hindman and Brady in the road?
The lefthand likeness shows a bucktoothed runt,
Less than man-size, nevertheless the dude,
Strangely familiar; in the morning paper
They posed a gang of you in black windbreakers,
Sideburns, ducktail haircuts, come
From everywhere, driven like you, betrayed
Like you, by the force that drove them, small again
Like you, slouching near Beaver Smith’s saloon,
Squinting into the sun.
But in
The picture on the right, the swagger and
Swashbuckle boldness you put on
With the carnation in the dark lapel,
Fit like your skin. ‘Handsome, amiable,
Courageous,’ knight-errant of youth,
You ride the ranges of romance
Stirrup to stirrup with your myth.
The double images persist.
No effort of the eye or brain
Wrenches into focus, superimposes
One on the other, so as to cancel out
The inconsistencies of sight and seen.
Somewhere in fact or legend, reality
Cranes furtively around the livery barn
Where Billy waited for the sheriff’s men.
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