A crazy czar
A crazy czar sits on a high chair knowing no limits,
admitting no libel, no lull in the lilt of liberation.
A leader he is of lessening lessons, lacks, and bells,
an aspiring reader of rows, columns, and diagonal lines,
darts on the mapped spread of outbacks and fronts, charts.
He waits.
He waits for the fame, for the name he was promised,
for the same crowning of a transnational monarch,
hearing in the square the sane crowing of zealots
who dare raze the air, who care now to raise, to broach,
to brand and approach, issues of sensibility and might,
the right to dissent, the sense of sight, freedom of movement,
from Zealand and Zagreb, to Zanzibar, and the Amazon of Brazil;
thus the polyphemous becomes the sign of a multiple something
across a vast wasteland, a tundra, a prairie, or place of prayer,
a low-lying wind, surpassings of an infamous self,
the razor-like music of a Zarathustra,
the last gasp of an alphabet,
the end of an imperious reign.
royalty or rags
snags loyalty gaps
in a sequence of zones
from nadir to zenith
perched between Zeus and Zen
beyond the ken of zodiac raves
cameras zoom in and out
zeppelins loom from Zurich to Zambezi
water waves and runways
silently sphinx-like music of a Zywny
from zero to zed, from zygote to dead
II. z: resquiescat in pace
a zwinger, a version of fort, castle, protection
from zephyrs of pure wonder and doubt,
blowing timed zany plays over centuries,
the five takers-in, lore and galore,
-- Zoroaster Dio Zulu Deus
Zombi jesters zeitgeists jazz--
a wind of kazoos and zigzagged breath
onto the breadth of metal keys and bars,
xylophone: a zebra of feeling sounds
of alternate meanings, a visual zipper
of tones -- made of zinc, zircon, ink? --
touched off by zeugmas, zimbels, and sniffs,
tools of perception receipt reception conceit,
zapped old-world zingiber soaked in zinfandel
and replanted in a different new-world langue
(zaragoza zarzuela zocalo zapote . . . Zapata),
in instruments, magazines, free books, or LED,
from millennia back to now, discovery bred,
and the beast of all the senses bested,
so zestful in place, resting in peace