Joe Dolce: Three Poems

Poetry Is Like Looking

Poetry is like looking

for a haystack in a needle.

Joe Dolce

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Ag

Argentum.

Seventh metal of antiquity.

Noble metal of alchemists.

Represented by crescent moon.

Less malleable than gold, high polish.

Thirty pieces sold Jesus.

Muhammad wore it on his little finger.

Da Vinci, Durer and Raphael drew with it.

Trembles in photographic film, x-rays, mirrors,

bandages, dental amalgams, catheters,

solder, infrared telescopes,

reactor control rods, solar cells,

flutes, trumpets.

The greatest of all electrical conductors.

Eatable flakes known as Vark.

Too much taken internally

produces argyria: blue skin.

Kills bacteria in vitro.

Three forms of deterioration:

black tarnish (in air),

pale yellow (in water),

purple (in light).

 

Dissolves in cyanide.

Joe Dolce

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I Dreamt I Saw St Augustine

(St Dominic, As Well)

 

I dreamt I saw St Augustine,

(St Dominic, as well),

brothers in Christ and Light, but from

both men the shadows fell.

 

St Augustine was patron Saint,

of brewers and of printers,

he argued for Just War Theory,

Original Sinners.

 

Latin was his childhood language,

a hedonistic youth,

the most sexual of all the Saints,

thieving and lust uncouth

 

inspired his oft repeated prayer,

(soon, he’d be celibate):

Lord, please grant me chastity and

continence … but not yet!

 

His arguments against magic

formed the core decisions,

for persecution of witches,

during the Inquisition.

 

I dreamt I saw St Augustine,

(St Dominic, as well),

brothers in Christ and Light, but in

both men the shadows fell.

 

St Dominic’s Dominicans,

Pope Innocent adored.

A play on Dominicanus—

Latin: Dog of the Lord.

 

St Dominic’s advice was sought

to root out the Cathars,

the only Crusade within the faith,

a Christian civil war.

 

A score of years in Southern France

to put heretics down,

a victory apparent but

the Cathars went to ground

 

and practiced outlawed beliefs to

the Feminine above,

with songs to Ladies of the Crown,

in veiled Courtly Love.

 

St Dominic’s lost troubadours,

romantic harbingers,

through musing Ladies of the Court,

presaged our folksingers.

 

I dreamt I saw St Augustine,

(St Dominic, as well),

brothers in Christ and Light, but on

both men the shadows fell.

Joe Dolce