Four Poems
by Donald Wellman
Dioses de Oaxaca
Stars in the rug represent the churches of Oaxaca
Why do I lie to myself?
Bluestones wet with rain
Fish,
embedded in the floor of the Abbaye de Lessay,
She agreed.
Xonaxi, Cosana
The rain, black spores.
Green stone arches and cupolas of blue and white squares
I will not publish this without your permission.
Violence, an aspect of love
Four points define
the corners of the universe.
Pije-tao, overlord of the 13 dieties
Strong-legged female statuettes
from San José Mogote
San Agustín
From her garden
Jacarandas and calla lilies, azucena
I look down into the terraces of Monte Albán
Westerly
Haze
Burning dollop of sun
On this hillside
was a shirt factory, a clinic for the workers
An artisanal highschool.
The visibility of power,
stemming from blood lore,
fades
Census:
sixty six
Mixtec, Zapotec
New studios make
acid-free paper for kites and books
Régimen: usos y costumbres
A contract determines
the tariff structure
that propels
taxies from Etla
into the Oaxaca. Travel permitted.
Llévame, llévame, carry me, carry me away
The carousel has broken down
Three little girls have no where to go
Barricades and conflagrations
A shot rips a shoulder.
The conflict hurts to the very bone
How govern
unless
each vote
counts.
White Room
I contemplate this generous space among arcades
Ceiling bowed by the light
As if paper
Weddings here and wedding banquets
have been held
The way out
is a passage through
similar rooms
Funerals
For the father killed as he worked
artfully
to disentangle a landmine
from a vine
They carried him across the river in the bottom of the boat,
in his shroud
Mourners under an umbrella.
Impassive
Maroon roses
Sacrament
Different sopranos for different Christs
Shifts in rhythm instead of harmony
mark transitions. Dance replaces arias.
Calatrava’s webs carry people through
tents with profiles that sweep across the sky.
Dana Schutz’s palette of magazine colors
Multicolored mourners surround a broken corpse
theater of dismemberment and irony
Flatness, carnival, and mockery
Chorales with percussion from multiple sources
Cada persona tiene su mundo
She explained to her friend
Invented allegories of deep suffering
Muxima, site of pilgrimage,
choruses from multiple nations
La pasión según San Marco
Seeing double philosophical trees
Bound torso, folded drapery
Coils merge Bernini with cartoons
Mother nurses infants sprung from trees
Betrayed in the jungles of Bolivia
Fragments of his dismembered corpse
Circulated among the people
Genocide, slavery, environmental degradation
produced by conquistadors
Sacred sap of invented trees,
milky rubber stuff
Seeking a modern function
Each has her own world she said
examining the skin for imperfections
