SONORAN STORM

photo credit: Pete Gregoire National Geographic

"STEAL YOUR FACE"*1

           ~for Brian Landis


a boomer hits a bloomer
the giant, monster saguaro
lit aflame
late, late
bloomer

and when a boomer
boomerangs a bloomer
glimpse the face
giving face to "I's"
that steal the face

below water.
Remember
when you look, steel your face
and not the heart killing you
in toward death by fantasy*

©2014 Euterpe's Magic stephanie pope mythopoetry.com


notes

*for the dual role images play in psyche-making see Brian Landis, "The Morning Sun Is More Precious Than Gold Even If The Spaniards Don't See It That Way"  line 36 in Feathered Ladder: Selected Poems Dennis Patrick Slattery, Brian Landis, Fisher King Press il piccolo edition 2014.


*1. "Euterpe is carrier of the striking and electrifying attribute of her father Zeus: the lightning bolt. We find this euterpian magic at work in the electronic age of music; we find it as well in the digital speed with which iTunes informs the world. Looking back to one of America’s iconic musical groups, The Grateful Dead, we find the memorable emblematic image for their 1974 Steal Your Face album cover: the lightning bolt—diagonally etched blue and red across the top of a skeleton skull. Whether or not this was a deliberate homage to Euterpe, she is nonetheless implicitly

represented, as is of course, stormy Zeus, her father." (see FIG. 2) For this quote  see L. Martina Young

FIG. 2 The Grateful Dead album cover, Steal Your Face