From CRUSHED SONNETS—
A CROWN FOR THE KINGDOM OF THE DEAD
Only the ghost of Great Ajax, Son of Telamon,
kept his distance, blazing with anger at me still
–Homer, The Odyssey
* * *
In the 7th circle, an old carpenter with ten thumbs worth of knotted knuckles scrapes his face
across blackened brimstone floor as he crawls forth to earn a working wage. Awoken from a
dream of seven poems he cannot remember, but words bite the flesh of his tongue, gold alligator
clips wired to a running car battery: every day lasts an eternity building stanzas of fire for Minos
to edit full of the dead. Yet who stands there forcing his fingers inside the gash in his chest,
trying to speak with crow-pecked eyes? One of the underworld’s spiteful suicides—
* * *
A child, Ajax, in premonitory visions, foresaw his suicide & remembered former lives. Not only
the Greek warrior, born over & again, he lived keeper as well as kept. Here, he destroyed. There,
he sold insurance: Marlowe, not Shakespeare; Oppenheimer, not Einstein; Teddy, not JFK.
Whispering Achilles’ name, hearing Odysseus’ laughter in the dark, Ajax never escapes
Athena’s wrath. Plagued by an eight-armed god of self-strangulation, he tears at his own throat
for spite. His shame resounds off the world, a funeral march tuned mute dirge, turned ghost.