(I have called this poem by many names but settled upon this as the title.)
A need to keep mouthing the cud
Her boney doleful face
Poised at oblique angle
Androgenous
Opaque averted eyes
Expressionless
Motionless
But for the yield curve
Of that elliptical face*
The photopraphs shot
By so many cameras
Orbitting that medieval monk mask
Capturing each subtle change
So she became a mask of death
Mask of death by censor
Thwarted by the Nobel Prize
She certainly did deserve
Stalin breathing down her pages
Tearing black holes in poetry
A Dialogue Diabolique
Yet here I write of politics
And I shall call this poem:
Pure Wool, Perwil, Pure Evil
Songs of Innocence
Songs of Experience
I think of myself as Queen Lear
And shall say and do as I choose
We share our society
A mutual society
A society of contempt–
Yes we do, you who read this
We share our bitter contempt
You'll only find ugliness here
I never thought about Living–
Living in a time of Pure Evil–
My father had fought that War
Antidote to end all wars
Third generation repeating
All that the first said would cease
I never imagined Being
Co-existing in time with Evil
Pure Evil: so close to “Pure Wool”
Tiny tag on a small stuffed bear
That my child had named: Perwil
Or that‘s what I heard in my head
I had liked this name Perwil
And wondered it all aloud:
So close to Percival
Its sound so like Parsifal
Wisest of grail-seeking fools
So he held forth the bear‘s tired tag
Carefully sounding the words:
Made in USA, Made of Pure Wool
Percival, Parsifal, Perwil, Pure Evil
What is the reach of Pure Evil:
Until innocence breaks its heart.