2 June 2002 | Vol. 2, No. 2

Billboards

by STEPHEN OLIVER

1.

Papers exchanged hands in the garden

at dawn, this much is known. The brotherhood

had gathered in the atrium a few days earlier.

Conversations suggested denial, betrayals

hinted at. By agreement, the Conseil d'Etat

sanctioned minimal restraint, allowed

for the provisional postings abroad.

2.

Let river bridges of the Great Cities

resonate to the prophet's bannered speech.

Let the riggers erect puzzles about the blank-

faced buildings. Let the caterers leap

and hoteliers rejoice in multiple bookings.

Blind-folded is the night while migratory

birds execute their flight-plans at dusk from

mudflats over industrial wetlands.

3.

Broad-winged sea birds under cloud lift

out of sight and recognition as that cloud

dissolves to a day of endless light, promised

heat: sea eagle, pelican, the wondering

albatross. Elsewhere, a moon-laden sky; close by

it's raining, a sustained, pelting applause.

O terrorist strike! O bombardments!

4.

Fuliginous is the varying fashion in

conflict: "orchestration of Europe," "the

condition of unfreedom," "peaceful conflict

resolution," "conduct of states," "human and

civil rights," "millennial illusions," "minimum

for the many," "maximal goal of unity,"

"liberal order" in an Age of Unauthenticity:

burnt offerings on the millennial pyre.

5.

A rain-quick storm and slap-dash cloud:

that which hastens to an end could be timely;

death means you conclusively miss out on

the next war as in the case of Yeats/Chesterton

who did, after a fashion, fulfill a life.

To each is given only so many shifts in era

or atmosphere, which may be reckoned thus:

an intellect packed full as a warehouse.