(Tune: “Londonderry Air")

Here in the vista of three hundred years we stand,

Our torches kindled by thy guiding light.

A Pilgrim host, we come to thee from every land,

With joyful hopes, well girded by thy might.

Connecticut, beloved State, all hail to thee;

Tower of might against a flaming sky,

The heav’ns resound with praise, ring out with victory.

God speed you on and all your glories sanctify.

Through summer heat and winter cold thy honor stands,

A bulwark gainst the mighty hosts of sin,

Till love shall spread to earth’s most distant island strands,

And Heaven’s righteous ways o’er evil win.

Connecticut, advancing through the changing years,

May knowledge guide thy sons and daughters fair,

And honor, truth and wisdom banish all our fears,

Connecticut, while we thy many glories share!

The years shall pass across thy mighty mountain walls,

Against the gold of every setting sun,

A newer host, well-born within thy ancient halls,

Shall bear thy standards of new glories won.

Connecticut, our fathers kept thy honor fair,

Thy reach of love they widened to the sea.

We shall keep faith, where they fought; we, too, shall dare,

Connecticut, for aye we pledge our hearts to thee.

Octosyllabic rhyme was killed.
Her epitaph I chisel here…
so face the book and feed your twit;
while I the rhythmic record clear.

The sad remains of Lyric Wit
are here interred—no more to rise
(lest poets’ brains be forced to think
and plummet from post-modern skies).

You phonies scrolling Twitter-blink
and scribblers with advanced degrees
look up, and hearken to these words
while feigning your conceited ease.

The academic gallows-birds
reviewing chap-books, high on fluff
make darker the sepulchral gloom—
as if it wasn’t dark enough.

The verdict’s in and all assume,
as measured meaning leaves the court,
he meant to **** her (Poetry).
Life sentences are written short.

The killer, grinning artlessly
in blank-verse handcuffs, void of rhyme,
composes abstract lines: the dull
memoirs of his poetic crime.

The prosecution’s notes are full
the case is made, the jury hears
his guilt made evident, at least.
The victim’s mother melts in tears

He murdered her himself, the beast.
then dumped her: a deflowered rose.
His incoherent imagery
dismembered her like slaughtered prose.

She met her end lamentably;
He did her in and cut her down
thus shortening her metered day.
(murderous, evil, free-verse clown!)

Behold her grave—where grass turns hay
as poets’ bones subside to dust;
her soul with God to reconvene
(or wander in bemused disgust).

Her grave-site paints a pastoral scene,
poetic fodder: life from death…
and calves shall fatten near her tomb.
Oh coward reader: take a breath !

Ogun owed Oxun for the fee he paid
to divorce Yemayá in the watery deep.
Babalu Aye‘s messenger delayed
(no *** in the bargain – price too steep)
until San Martín, divine caballero
deceived the third wife of el Indio Guerrero.

(Obatala‘s beats got lost in transit
the rhythm robbed by macumba-bandit.)

Eleguá cleared paths for He Who Opens Pores.
Black roosters smoked puros at midnight. Outdoors,
Santa Muerte was asked to turn down the noise
so Nana Buluku could get some sleep.

As she gathered Ashé, reduced to a heap
of Yoruba fool’s gold anointed with blood
Oduduwa pretended he understood;
but his mother-in-law knew he never would
until Olódùmarè returned from the feast
having sacrificed roosters while facing east.

The santero drew me a pictogram
to protect me from forces my poem conjured
but the blood of a sacrificed perfect lamb
affords more protection, I knew. He wondered.