David Spicer

from Lena and Schopenhauer

Hawk of the South World

Shortly after I began my Iliad with her,
I scoured the library and searched crisp
aisles of information that revealed
the dire talent of Lena, the Roget
of battlefields, the former niña adopted
by rebels who carried torches
for someday, a tonic for honor, a pulse
against doom of power gained
by the craft of warfare. The yellowed
papers reported of the young beauty,
whom all the rebels had a taste for, not of.
They called her Amazon of the Andes
and Hawk of the South World for no stilted
reason, and she learned to rankle reporters and
cops, aroused them with disguises as a South
American Garbo or Lara the stylist for sienna
blush and hair. Assets obvious, Lena took
the stance of Queen and fought shiploads
of creeps and crimes. The victor in countless
fights, each an event of winner take all
or nothing, Lena ruled, doled out death
to hollow hunks who called her Nutcracker
and Kung Fu Cunt. Her legend grew eerie,
and she added to the lore with gifts
of black-hair locks bound with turquoise bows.
No one knew their meaning when Lena grew
restless, wore linen bikinis—the better
to fight in—with a suntan that shined
and altered her fate: conga drums called her,
she mused, and disappeared. Some said east,
others called her Oona, and more journalists
took the stance that now a free agent,
Lena left for another port of treason
at her pace and void of bellyache.

Or Somethin’

Near the coast Lena and I drove the Maserati
to a country store where four Bubbas blabbed
and snacked on stringy meat, bullied
a rummy and her bony codger, pushing them
back and forth. The store’s sign read Neptune
Grocery in red block letters, and the four lard
sniffers stopped when they noticed Lena and me
step out of the car, her long legs irritating the
gravel with glum luster. Well, ain’t this peachy,
the biggest goon, a bouncer or bartender,
announced, Let’s cook this goose. Lena warned,
You don’t want a taste of me, Dickhead
and he replied, Oh yeah, too good for me, bitch?
Lena kicked him in his lizard lair, karate
chopped his Adam’s apple, and dropped him
like a briny prima donna. I took on the smallest
turd, a pompous counterfeit who wore a hackneyed
frock, smacked him with a lucky bomb,
my right hand. The shrewder pair sparred
with us, one with a Bowie and the other
wielded a lean-to board, giving us wide berth.
Lena side-kicked the face of the blademan,
and his partner swung the stick at me. I ducked,
exploded another lucky bomb, and out came
a zealot with a pistol halfway up before
Lena tackled him, pried the gun away and twisted
his fingers until he wailed like a resurrected fossil.
We brushed ourselves off, strode into the store,
fluid as lofty omens, and Lena asked the midget
twins who scurried behind the counter, Got any
hog guts, boys? Fear in their eyes, they replied,
Yes, ma’am. They’re on us. You one of them
women libbers or somethin’?

Many Yelled Mayday

Lena, Enyo, Oona, all your names
stood on deck in your body, a silhouette
under the Milky Way night, and you told me
more of your history, the sardonic
moon an eavesdropper:

When I hit the jungle after plundering
in the city, I huddled alone, sleeping
near lumber fires, found a stick and cut
a flute, played songs after dusk. The rebels
chuckled when I asked to join them.
Montoya the leader told me I could
if I whipped one of theirs. After
the sad guy flopped from my first punch,
nobody laughed. They knew the barracuda
I was then —I wouldn’t be spoon fed.
More of the troops tried their tongue
on the neck of this girl, this parody
soldier, but I’d tap them with a quick
goof punch, a bucket over leaky heads.
Many yelled Mayday,
Samsons to my Delilah. I became
teacher, mentor, showed them how
to shoot long guns. Soon I was Montoya’s
second, and we called ourselves the yin
and yang of the jungle. We hired
mercenaries, 300 strong, living in the holes
of the planet, sailing the different oceans.
Then a bullet blew Montoya’s head apart.
Several men thought me a kitten, but I knifed
them in the sternum, twisted the blade,
and kicked them dead with one roundhouse.
The men christened me, cheered me, loved me.
And here we are, headed for the Riviera
someday in this crazy windjammer, the sour
answer to pirates everywhere. Now I’m
tired, a roadside sneaker in the summer.

When the Tern Flies Low

I hear flutes in the moments
between the ocean’s wit and sad sails.
I think of you, Lena, steeled against
the forecast of thunder and hatred.
You survived your Alamos, never tottered
against a cast of Göethe’s villains
or Hindus in Minot you’d forgotten.
You know the sea otter with its blather
can adapt to pageants of morays,
and I remember your first moan,
Lena, how it pierced the suede night
of lauded pagans. Why is obsession
a latex glove, Lena? After it enters
the nexus of our heart’s storm,
it leaves with the clout of a mute scent
of oxide? You’ve been the donor
to my whelp blood you love,
and I amble the streets of Maine
like a rancher from rehab, ideals
soused with memories of your sighs
in parks and mesas of the West.
Even loners abhor their sins,
and I hold that memo you sent yesterday
from a drab outpost in Gambia. You relish
the gristle of the stab, the sever of the fat,
and the 300 soldiers you lead, Lena,
have no slant but you.  I await
your apparition like the artist views
his easel after a night of ash and ague.