Isidore, They Came To Claim You

there were songs that enveloped you
rose up like a hungover longshoreman
like hallucinations
black and crystal clear
muddled intent with an impassioned sneer
to privatize reason, kick you into season
he brings all the sea serpents
the old jealous gods
and invents
purpose

all these green fields
are full of monsters and feelings
stored deep in old memory
walk down the end of the worn streets
where the ocean is undefined
hides behind strategy
and leading to the untethered ends
it alludes to itself in long black feathery planks
that disappear beneath waves
like saints burned alive
tied to trees
pruned for tools
that despise and kill witches
the obsolete and the sublime and
the sisters that hid the unknowable
behind sheet of plaster and quicklime
the iridescent hills were full of flashing idols
private visions and pervasive transgressions
mountains of chemicals renamed
with a flavor and fear
you were unchallenged by not knowing
no ice shattered into clear gin warmed containers
held by heroes
belted by maps of the
galaxy Van Ellen's bet unvetted
by someone longing to
remember piously
perceptively
before the war.