Poetry: Selections from Max Thrax

Gerard’s Dream

Sometimes I wish

To be a piece of ash

Floating over the Pacific

Sometimes a birch

Or clutch of leaves

In deep Siberia

And like the rivers

I run north

Slamming the ice dams

Water leaps from the banks

Most times

I am the overflow

A few reeds in a swamp

Sitting pools

Green sludge

Lodged under fingernails

Aurora

Do I need to see her?

I know she's there

Whatever touches her hair

Turns to gold

Far past her shoulders

Down to the cold ground

I catch her in rays

Follow her shadows

A secret game

Known only to us

In the woods 

I wait

In the grayness of morning

Understand the night

QED

It's not easy

To kill a judge

You need tactics

Planning

Preparation

Maybe half a ton of explosives

Laid under the highway

The real Don Corleone

Was named Salvatore Riina

He never won an Oscar

Or packed cotton in his cheeks

But he was very good

At killing judges

And proved

In a split second

God can leave the earth

Duke Bluebeard

His tendrils were showing

Under his armor

Too late for seventh

As for the sixth, fifth, and fourth

Which bride he loved best

Was an open question

He descended the stairs

With a pregnant sneer

They were all amazed

By the size of his domain

They were awed

By his cold command

They saw racks and spears

Jewels encrusted in blood

And a leaking doorway

From a room filled with tears

He rode from the gate

Out to the fields

Never looking back 

What use their titles

Their lives reduced

To a tiny room

At Duke Bluebeard's

Max Thrax lives in Boston. His novella God Is A Killer (Close To The Bone) will be published in May 2022.