Ahura Mazda

This sand and thistle
wilderness once held
gardens where we greeted
fighting Cambyses home
from Egyptian conquest
with slaves, ivory, gold,
a stable of captured gods.

We feasted, glittering
dancers whirled
Priests of Ahura Mazda
filled our cups
with liquid glory.

Waking, we found the city under siege.
Macedonian javelins raining down,
runners bawling out the dread
from Granicus. There's a new god now,
Aristotle's prize student,
Alexander Mastodon
a phalanx of bloody
dust spilling into Asia
Egypt India
like a plague.

Our survey indicates a finite
number of horsehide insect whisks
Nubian slaves loading bales
of colored cotton
tusks, spices, pottery
precious stones and bulging
granaries, newly erected temples.

Then it darkens,
armies roll,
locusts drizzle through
river orchards, illuminated
manuscripts go for fish wrap.

Each human's got a part to play.
I was the grinning wanderer who
played the flute or juggled
green bottles in torchlit courtyards,
I was the plain man with
the shriveled belly,
a bricklayer, a sail maker,
the man who buried fallen legions
with balm and special markings
coins lidding the eyes.

This process, profit and loss,
began with dried
fish and carved elk horn,
flints and surgery exchanged for
water in summer
salt in winter.

Fall off a Turkish siege ladder at
Constantinople into a dark vortex
of smoking emptiness
and points
of echoing fire,
see what happens then.

A last memory
will be the full yellow moon
a woman's touch
the smile of a friend.

The ideas we know about.
They're always around
shuffled from fleet to caravan
maybe getting less attention by now
being laughed at, ridiculed,
abused in the marketplace.

You simply make less impression
each time you exist.
Begin as a god
deep in the velvet
myths of Persia if you must,
you'll end up propping
open a temple door
in the seedy part of town,
naming a rotary engine
automobile by the time
the 20th Century rolls.

An excellent system
come to think of it.
Natural selection
among archetypes.
Each vehicle becoming its own
model of the universe
complete with ritualized
accessories
customized concepts
of duty and freedom.

Me, I love my new
Olympus XL Grand Operatic
camper with dashboard pantheon
sacred bough orphic stereo tape deck
barbed wire doors
supply of food, fuel and liquor
ensuring our survival, yours
in the abstract sense
mine in the concrete sense.

In this vehicle there is nothing to fear.
One recent evening I ploughed through
a mob of irate campesinos
while turning west toward
dusk on the Trans-Amazon Highway.

In my spotlights they scattered
buzzing and bristling
in the manner
of the starving
gnashing their teeth
as the weight of my place
in this night—
the only man for miles around
with liquor and food,
dawned on them.

Driving on, I caught a glimpse
of a Roman legion lost in
the Sahara of my rear view mirror,
and extinct deer grazing
in a dammed-up canyon.

Now is the perfect time
my god and I light up a
Cuban cigar, open a bottle of
'46 Bordeaux, the magic radio
comes on with mankind's
greatest hits:
Roland's horn, Oppenheimer's
mushrooming parody of Mozart's
magic flute caress the steaming,
bird-infested darkness.

Now you will hear a music
that does not dream
of what is past or passing
or to come.
Roll up the window
to block out the annoying
vegetable tides.
Listen.









Michael Shorb's work reflects an abiding interest in environmental issues, history, and the lyrical form, as well as a strong focus on material that reflects the dazzling horizons of the "real world." His poems have appeared in over one hundred magazines and anthologies, including The Nation, The Sun, Michigan Quarterly Review, Queen's Quarterly, Poetry Salzburg Review, Commonweal, Rattle, Urthona, and European Judaism.