Empires. John Balaban
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Название: Empires

Автор: John Balaban

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Зарубежные стихи

Серия:

isbn: 9781619322080

isbn:

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      CHRISTMAS EYE AT WASHINGTON’S CROSSING

       Omnia reliquit servare rempublicam

      Society of the Cincinnati

      Out on the freezing Delaware, ice sheets bob the surface, breaking

      against granite pilings of the colonial river inn swept by winter storm.

      Gusts of snow blow off a sandbar and sink in plunging currents

      where a line of ducks paddles hard against the blizzard

      as cornfields on the Jersey banks are whisked into bits

      of stalks and broken sheaves spinning in the squalls.

      This is where, one such Christmas night, the tall courtly general with bad teeth

      risked his neck and his rebels to cross the storming river and rout the Hessians.

      *

      What made them think they could succeed? … farmers mostly,

      leaving homesteads to load cannon into Durham boats

      to row into the snowstorm, then march all night to Trenton,

      saving the Republic for Valley Forge and victory at Yorktown.

      Before crossing, legend says, they assembled in the snow to hear

      Paine’s new essay about summer soldiers and sunshine patriots.

      What words could call us all together now? On what riverbank?

      For what common good would we abandon all?

      CIBOLERO

       During this time Castillo saw, on the neck of an Indian, a little buckle

       from a sword belt, and in it was sewed a horseshoe nail. He took it from

      the Indian, and we asked what it was; they said it had come from Heaven.

      We further asked who had brought it, and they answered that some men,

       with beards like ours, had come from Heaven to that river; that they had

      horses, lances and swords, and had lanced two of them.

      The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca (1542)

      It’s 7:00 a.m. in Tecolote, New Mexico,

      and the local news on cable

      is going on about some woman high on dust

      crashing into kids at a crossing. Meanwhile,

      out on the edge of the high prairie,

      up by I-25, the inmates are rising off

      their roosts at San Miguel county jail

      where the jail log reads like catechism:

      Criminal Sexual Penetration in the first degree. Assault with

      the intent to commit violent felony. False imprisonment.

      Extortion. Unlawful taking of a motor vehicle. Conspiracy.

      Burglary of a structure. Contributing to the delinquency

      of a minor. Kidnapping. Conspiracy to commit Aggravated

      Battery. Aggravated DWI (7th offense). Possession of

      drug paraphernalia. Driving on suspended revoked license.

      Probation Violation: Possession of marijuana, Possession of

      Methamphetamine. Aggravated stalking. Aggravated battery

      on household member, resisting, evading, violation of a

      restraining order, obstructing an officer. Vehicular Homicide,

      Aggravated DUI, Open Container, Reckless driving. Assault

      with a deadly weapon. Assault with intent to commit a

      violent felony, with intent to commit mayhem.

      The key word here is “mayhem,” spreading through

      the internet airwaves across the vast Llano Estacado

      where mountains break into mesas and scrub,

      dotted with piñon, cut by arroyos and twisty creeks

      and a web of old footpaths made by ancestors.

      And where the internet’s thousand channels

      are offering their social contracts, so

      whether you are watching from prison, or at home

      in your double-wide, or in the sleep cab of your semi,

      or in your townhouse at the city’s edge, or at Urgent Care,

      the local laundromat, or in a bar that never closes,

      wherever you are watching, you are probably just sitting

      (and doing this a lot) tuned to hucksters selling

      vacuum cleaners and Jesus, channel by channel:

      #9012: Puppy Pooping in the House?

      #9013: Thick Hair Guaranteed

      #9014: Rev. Run’s Sunday Suppers

      #9015: Suffer from Lower Back Pain?

      Mayhem being confusion turned to violence or lassitude.

      But whether in the lockup looking out,

      or among the hardworking folk of the Llano

      in adobe-and-stone compounds and corrals

      in, say, Ojitos Frios, Tecolote, or Villanueva,

      when you see the rain dropping its dark curtains

      over the vast plain, some Spenglerian twinge of memory

      must arrive … of the massive adobe pueblo at Pecos,

      of Coronado with his armored men on horses,

      or, later, as the centuries stood still and Spanish dreams collapsed,

      of trading with Comanches and learning to hunt buffalo

      charging bareback into the stampeding СКАЧАТЬ