Civilization’s Lost: Poems by Jeff Bagato

From Palace to Palace

                         One leap over the horns
                  of consecration—
                                  a fine arc pleases
                    the mistress of animals
                             so she shows her breasts,
                                      sending more peace
                     and fertility to the fields 
                                 & hills

                               Let the wine pour
                                        from palaces 
                          stocked with grain,
                                  saffron, olives &
                                     figs

                            Our goddess rules
                                 on the fill of cornucopia
                   and weapons not made
                           for war

                            Connection 
                               to the world, protection 
                    from the world—in the end
                                      our friend the sea
                        offered up betrayal
                                 as a watery wall
               crushed this fortunate island
                             and locked its language
                                    into clay

                                    Palaces of plenty 
                         borne by red columns that subvert
            those illusions cherished by
                                 a bullying world of war 
                                         that can only
                          guess at the easy
                                 joy made in peace

                   After these waves,
                          the invisible language 
              of a people becomes 
                      as onyx, hard & opaque 
                                 as the underworld’s
                            tears

A Better Cannibal

           fake news, fake
                 history, an alphabet
      turned against itself,
                     nonsense salted through
              the facts
                 
              your ideogram
          now unfolds like cancer
                        eating a cell
                from the inside

         fleas on a betrayed highway
                        jump like 
                 dice for the blood
           of the next
                    king

Chain of Command

                          An alphabet
                  makes a world
             regardless of
                     understanding

                Glyph magic
                    pulls the mind
                            into meaning, even
       when that meaning has been
                       a phantom all along

                  Writing mirrors
                          the shape of thought; words
         mirror each other, forking
                     one to one more,
                               an endless chain
            of faith in the posterity
                         of human mind

Mound Culture

                                      The harm of nonsense
                               can be broad,
                                        widening the gap
                         between real minds
                                 and those consumed
                                           by magic and dross,
                           the spinning of wealth
                                   from straw—

                            golden treasure,
                                   something like a shield,
                      with a spell of protection
                              hammered 
                                     into its face

                                   A mound of earth
                       could be a burial,
                              a temple, a heap
               of garbage, or just a hill—the natural 
                                         world invading the made
                                  one and breaking
                     up the empire’s vast
                                      horizon
                     
                            Beads, flints, and buttons join 
                                             the paltry bones forming 
                                the outline of a king; 
                                      here lies 
                       another madman who hoarded gold 
             and laid aside simple food
                              for helpings at cup and pipe
                                          and his banker’s glee:
             
                                       a skin scribbled over
                       with the hash marks 
                                   of a counterfeit’s
                                            art

                            Fictions like these defy
                                          the rain, its thunder 
                               not recorded
                      by the weakling alphabets 
                                    of human crimes

To every fox, a henhouse of his own

                  A voice exists when
                          backed 
                      by coin

               Marked by his greed,
                            a citizen keeps
                 time on a loose 
                       abacus,

                   his thought balloon 
       covered in blackened lines
              scratching
                       away the light

                Laws like superstition
                             lie still while
                     the predator feeds, 
         an old dog too weak
                  to take the fight