Craig Kurtz- Three Poems

The Newest Improvement in Failure

AN APOCALYPTIC COMEDY

The dearly assembled congregated a circle

with incense amist and joined hands in a tryst;

incanting the spells of an ancient raindance

they chewed off their limbs in a foul brotherhood.

It was the newest improvement in failure, that act.

The pyramids and coliseums were burnt

as offerings to the unfathomable fog

that mells with the spheres in sulphurous heavens 

as the leperous doomed assumed jurisdiction.

It was the newest improvement in failure, that scene.

The castles all crumbled and the dungeons did flourish

as poisons and pistols turned blood into ghosts;

the sheriff’s department in absentia was tried

by harlots and vagrants appeasing cruel idols.

It was the newest improvement in failure, that play.

The eunuchs all feasted while the sultans all fasted

due to decrees erected by Bolsheviks;

dumbshows and puppets imitated mankind

while pontiffs and prophets filed patents on torture.

It was the newest improvement in failure, that schtick.

Vassals and serfs supported steam engines

which promised to mechanize the crushing of grapes;

satyrs and centaurs impounded the free press while

local economists rolled dice on split atoms.

It was the newest improvement in failure, that bit.

Sirens and naiads ensorcelled black pirates

who ransacked the skeleton of Cleopatra;

experts and scholars vilified effigies

but vandals and robbers blackmailed shrunken heads.

It was the newest improvement in failure; satire.

Adam and Eve had one last trick up their sleeve

automating childbirth with garlic and cloves;

in jungles and sewers centipedes multiplied

until an eclipse of the sun unleashed mutancy.

It was the latest innovation in folly; applause.

Mata Hari

Herein lies the legend of

   the Mata Hari mythos;

A ballad of deception,

   guiles and wanton eros.

Back in time skip we

   to a younger century;

A mere one hundred years-

   a dollar of eternity.

‘Twas an era of invention,

   steamships to the moon unfurled;

Marconi, Freud and Edison

   laid maps upon the world.

From isolate South Pole

   to the savagest Ubangi,

Zeppelins and submarines

   the globe condensed ingeniously.

Exotic were the lands,

   province once of fairly tale;

Deduced unto the Expositions-

   circus trifles and cheap ale.

Kingdoms were erected from

   sawdust, nails and staff[1];

To edify and entertain

   carriage swells and ne’er-do-well riff-raff.

But, to the text shall I attend,

   forswearing idle peregrination;

Our heroine, Margaretha Zelle,

   born to the Netherlands, town of Leeuwarden.

With swarthy skin and twirling locks,

   she was a child of especial charm;

Her father’s jewel, and pampered so,

   with an intelligence that did disarm.

A princess in her fantasy,

   a world of castles and of chivalry;

An exalted sire’s soft quiddity

   fostered M’greet’s acute coquetry.

And then, in bud of maidenhead,

   her father’s fortunes were bankrupted;

The luxury and indolence of this 

   blithe child was roused from bed.

To school she went to learn a trade,

   that of a kindergarten teacher;

Polylingual, mild and clever-

   “felicitous” leered the headmaster.

With a cherub’s bosom and a strumpet’s bum

   Margaretha’s fate in full begun;

Her natural scent, Venusian blossom-

   how many a man would come undone.

O what madness curses men

   when women they consider;

Their blood does quicken and too soon

   their yen becomes distemper.

And what can mere damsels do

   when lust’s phantasm’s misconstrue;

To be a mortal, assigned a shrew,

   or play the muse, and let wealth woo.

Why are men, who rule the world,

   so powerless before a lass?;

They speechify and pontificate

   while love songs make of them an ass.

And women who, like sovereigns,

   control the globe’s libido’s weal;

They own so little else unless

   a goddess pose provides a meal.

Procreation predicates

   a symmetry of purpose;

Recreation presupposes

   fancies passing otiose.

The marrow of the matter

   Shakespeare discoursed at length:

Women have been known to fall

   when men possess no strength.[2]

Which brings us back to the tale

   of Margaretha Zelle;

Compromised and then disgraced

   by the man she did enspell.

Fortunes waned but with ardors spry

   our nimble nymph unto marriage hied;

Captain Rudolph John MacLeod, Dutch East Indies officer,

   as a drunken prank did advertise for a young mail-order bride.

Stationed on the misty isle

   of Java with her lord and sir;

A reprobate, immodest cur,

   M’greet was married to disaster.

Vile ingrate, perverted knave,

   he made his wife a bedroom slave;

Dark arts did corrupt her acts,

   begetting wiles as her enclave.

A Hindu-Buddhist paradise at sea

   infused M’greet’s muliebrity;

Subservience suborned, nourished and transformed,

   the slave did master slavery’s diabolic artistry.

Sarong-attired and Malay-bejeweled

   she learned the Dance of Seven Veils;

How to bottle hearts and encask souls

   as recompense for dire assails.

‘Tis now the era of La Belle Époque,

   Edwardian Gilded Age;

When neon absinthe cheered the fops

   and laudanum drove poets sage.

Thus to Paris this narration moves

   introducing our gay divorcée;

Now rechristened Mata Hari,

   “Eye of the Day” — fey, recherché.

‘Twas Little Egypt who brought in vogue

   the hoochie coochie from Cairo[3];

But Mata Hari, mistress to the illustrious Guimet, 

   had a museum in which to make her debut show.[4]

And, she, Guimet’s exotic exhibit,

   a Javanese parvenue,

did intoxicate the hoi polloi with 

   carnal charms and abstruse taboo.

Not original in particular

   nor especially beautiful;

But sensually refined,

   Mata Hari was amenable.

From Monte Carlo to Madrid

   she ensorcelled aristocrats;

Her belly ballet salon-renown

   and finely-priced, howe’er ersatz.

For Dukes and Counts, gentlemen of leisure,

   will have unhallowed wassailing pleasure;

Games of chance, splendid repasts, then aperétifs and tapers quelled,

  the evening’s pearl submits her treasure.

Affection — or affectation? What

   difference cares jejune coition;

Jealousies and rivalries are aphrodisiac libations

   when oblation is volition in courtships mephistophelian.

A lavish life, epitomized by opium,

   perfumes and continental infamy;

Hormones heed no sovereignties,

   courtesans ply internationally.

But now the compass of geography is aggrieved

   with the apparatus of colonial conquest;

Contending nations, murderous statesmen

   machinate the pestilence only seas of blood arrest.

Thus Mata Hari, flitting to and fro,

   from Switzerland, Paris, Berlin,

et cetera, found herself increasingly

   in offices athwart some tedious captain.

Passport stamps more frequently became

   bureaucratic currency requisite;

That is how the serpentine intrigues of war

   cast into motion the involvement of our heroine maumet.

Cruel though it is, ‘tis true

   time moves at different tempos for each sex;

Men’s fortunes gain with age while women’s wane

   thus pheromones lose their puissance to hex.

‘Tho Mata Hari could always love a man

   (as long as he was someone new)

she finally found one unsusceptible to her

   narcotic charms — French counter-espionage agent George Ladoux.

Her mission was the vendible seduction

   of German high command Moritz von Bissing;

But, missing aim, she compromised with a middling Major Kalle

   who grew suspicious of the queries which accompanied her kissing;

Wherewith code name H21 was publicized a double spy

   condemned by both warring sides, femineity to no avail.

What tragedy, for only then

   the courtesan did find true love;

A Russian captain, twenty years her junior,

   would have wedded her save crimes convicted of.[5]

And so, imprisoned in Saint-Lazare, 

   her trial contrived, defense a fraud,

did Mata Hari face, blowing kisses at her captors, true, 

   the firing squad.

Here is where we quell this tale

   with admonitions quashing cheer;

No one loves a Ferris-Wheel

    in dark December drear.

---

[1] A composition of plaster and fibrous material used for a temporary finish and in ornamental work, as on exposition buildings.

[2] Romeo and Juliet, 2:3.

[3] Fahreda Mazar Spyropoulos, professionally known as Little Egypt, popularized the belly dance at the “Streets of Cairo” attraction, held at the 1893 Columbian Exposition Midway in Chicago.

[4] Émile Guimet, a millionaire industrialist from Lyon, was commissioned by the French Minister of Public Instruction to study the religions of the Far East and with ample colonial spoils to his credit, founded the Musée Guimet in 1879.

[5] Vladimir Masloff, under duress of military discretion, publically repudiated his relationship with Mata Hari during her incarceration.

Carnival Pigeons

SAWDUST:

Come along and revel, I’ve got a tale for you;

(Excuse the carny humor; what can a tent mouse do?);

A sentimental story, fit for kids and grown-ups too;

I’ll ringmaster this lyric (and, for now, louche rhymes eschew).

LOUIE:

You may think pigeons are all alike —

and you’d be wrong. A rube, in fact.

Louie is my handle and I’ll tell you off the cuff

location sets the destiny —

there’s creeds and breeds and sects; indeed,

classes. Me, I’m from the roughest town

and I’m the crown of the riff-raff.

I take no guff, I’m puffed and loud,

I’ll peck and gouge. (This here eye-patch?

You mind that I prevailed that flap.)

I assume the center perch in gothic spires

where I reside. I eat first and I sleep higher.

Quasimodo Corners is my alma mater

and gargoyles are my gauche ancestors.

I’ve sat on saints, I’ve crapped on kings,

I’ve commerced in convents and jails.

I’m the hoi polloi,

I ain’t your pretty boy.

SAWDUST:

Louie rules the rooftops like a kingpin, that is true;

A scrapper, a truant, an author of hullabaloo;

Your food, your nest, your mate — adieu!;

He’ll strut on your beak and then coo when he’s through.

LOUIE:

What do I spy, from my one plaguy eye?;

A situation has come into view.

A traveling circus has rolled into town.

Oh, might this be rich! May not this be loot?

There’s whistles and bells and hot blinking lights

and popcorn aroma which fires my flight.

There’s banners and gears and ramshackley tents,

calliope noise and peanut brittle segments.

Damn! I love this country!

I hit the jackpot, the vittles are grand,

I better chow now; this secret won’t last.

But, waitaminute, pal — I smell something else.

Oh, yes. Ring-a-ding-ding. Soft focus, maestro.

A ravishing femme, with powdery plumes,

the fluffiest tail, the dreamiest wings.

This is a goddess, an avian Venus!

But, hey what the hey, she’s cooped in a jail!

What sort of crumbum imprisons a female?

FRANCINE:

My name is Francine and I’m awfully fancy,

a pedigree circus bird, avian artist,

a delicate mechanism of nature.

I ride the tightwire on a unicycle

and somersault through a hoop,

twirling midair.

Then there’s the polka with fantail

refinement, engaging in curtsies

in a spinning ballroom. It’s immensely terrific!

Carny life, wooden nickels, travel by wagon,

up past our bedtime to glitter like gypsies.

And it’s a swell life … although there are times

I look to the sky and it whispers to me.

The clouds curl and surge forming fantastic shapes

of chariots pulled by aerial dolphins

through comets that rocket with unfettered colors.

The sky is a dream, a mirage of chimera

but … then again, my dinners are here.

SAWDUST:

So here we are, my friends, acquainted with our characters;

A boy, a girl, an obstacle, the rudiments of literature;

Few themes soothe our sensibilities as the labors of young paramours;

Such impractical endeavorments define love’s fine surrender.

LOUIE (Leaping on top of Francine’s cage):

Splendiferous bird! Inimitable girl!

How could you be so cruelly boxed in a trap?

What purposes such malefactions as this

and how do I get my heartbeat next to yours? 

FRANCINE:

My! But I say! You’re a froward old rogue!

Besieging and rattling a damsel’s reserve,

audaciously preening and importuning,

I ween I have never seen such a bluff!

LOUIE:

Calm down my dear, my intent is sincere

for here is the paladin who sets you loose!

FRANCINE:

Loose! I should say! Who’s looser than you

presuming I petition such liberties with you!

Philanderer!

LOUIE:

Termagant!

FRANCINE:

Scoundrel!

LOUIE:

Harpy!

FRANCINE:

Villain!

LOUIE:

Felon!

FRANCINE:

I dare say!

LOUIE:

I love you!

FRANCINE:

I know that!

LOUIE (Grasping cage bar with his beak):

Accursed cage!

FRANCINE:

Release me now! Notarize love;

alight, alight, and clear me for flight.

LOUIE (Grappling with the cage door hook):

Grr, vexatious vault!

Capitulate this treasury

and yield me my mate!

POP! (Door swings open; they both fly up into the sky.) 

FRANCINE:

So … this is the sky

and my wings engine it;

The further I fly, the more it expands.

And you, at my side, dilate it above

any speculation I had of ‘above.’

It’s truly numinous! 

And, here, the magnet’s momentum dissolves

whilst I feel the springs of your pinions near mine.

This is abandon, my only location

is flying with you …  illimitably.

How little I knew before in my bounds,

exertions in jest, exercises of sham.

This is quite unexampled.

The unknown astounds me

as I quiet my vision

to ken that of yours.

Destination immoment,

intuition profound.

LOUIE:

Now, where shall we dwell

and who shall we be

once we arrive? 

We are renewed,

creatures of 

fused design.

Where do I love you,

my intrepid partner?

Where ever we land

we double our lives. 

SAWDUST:

Ending this lay, I’ll just have to say 

our protagonists twice made a circle of earth; 

Exchanging a glance and vanishing hence, 

they multiplied futures with uncontrite mirth.

Craig Kurtz lives at Twin Oaks Intentional Community where he writes poetry while simultaneously handcrafting hammocks. Recent work has appeared in Outburst, Regime, Indigo Rising, Harlequin Creature, Otoliths, Randomly Accessed Poetics and Reckless Writing. Music work featured at FishFood & LavaJuice.