Pele: May 8, 1902
By Paul Cameron Brown
With the smile of morning
in her purse,
the dark laughter of her
cat napping
in the crevice, half-alert,
Martinique (angelique)
on padded paws
climbs from night.
I saw her hair-brush
the lava to warm the bay,
crinkle little St. Pierre
jammed into one
parking lot, volcanic embrace.
In the little museum
- the holocaust cenotaph -
Nature pared essentials to the bone,
a cauldron of smoke
peers from old photographs
to cement (danse macabre)
bric brac ivy/stone and
coffee beans wedded
in grandeur
fission-fusion-froideur
resembling masses of bees,
grotesqueries & beards
upstaging even Miro & the distant surrealists;
where reality masked vampire fiction to
roll sulphuric heat toward belches of
St. Pierre's prison.
And Cygnet
(his name close in French to "Swan"
leg-irons)
(subterranean chamberling peeking out),
undaunted solitary survivor -
the bars on his charnel house
were the fingers of God
pointing the way free.