Poor Bertrand
with his head in his hand—
is it murder to murder the dead?
Poor brainiac starved
Ugolino, O cruel—
schizy schismatic Mohammo
not giving a fart for art.

What comedy, Il Dante,
to be found in your new life?
Did you begin the canzone, perhaps
hoping to seduce God—
and end with the captive love child’s
head in your hands, murdered
by poetry?

Art of death perfected—
love so transparent its victims know
with sublime intuition how needful hell,
the gang of three so beautiful
because far below in the hollow heart
of a tiny, captive planet life pumps
and bubbles up and out . . .

The bawdy joke gone wrong
then, did you continue because
you served a god who brooks no
reproof, flays his enemies alive,
even as the captive suicide fails
to expire just at the instant of art
enhanced orgasm?

Poor Bertrand, dolcissimo patre!
Northern artists of whom we are told
also worked in captive flesh,
carving butterfly wings from the living back
and lifting out the fluttering lungs.
Dante . . . non pianger: live—
the Mantuan’s death.