AUDITIONS OF RED
Of all the colors of red, carmine —
Dark, alluring, and relentless —
Speaks, ingratiating, of intenseness:
Of velvet chairs and heartless Carmen,
Not bleeding, but saturating through the senses;
From under that mantilla, black and winsome,
Ultimately to prove diabolical and crimson.
Ingenue, grande dame — vermilion, cinnabar,
Compete for the spotlight, antinomies deployed,
Allied with antimony and even now alloyed
In fire that strikes from each the avatar.
Mercurial indeed are incarnations of mercury
Incarnadine with low-life sulfur
In passionate retorts swirled murkily;
To think that such liaisons make us suffer.
Rival beauties are easy to mistake:
Who trails the regulus of Venus in her wake?
Pleiades or constellations of harlots —
All flounce and attitude, altitude and starlets,
And everywhere the stars incalescent in scarlet.
NOTES for Students of English
Carmine — A rich red dye made from cochineal insects.
Cinnabar — Red mercuric sulfide HgS; vermilion, also HgS, is made from cinnabar.
Retorts — Both sharp replies and chemical vessels.
Regulus of Venus — A violet alloy of copper and antimony, Cu2Sb.
Pleiades — Pronounced plee-a-deez; the mythological daughters of Atlas; their names are given to a conspicuous loose cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus.
HORSEPOWER
There are horses in the basement,
And mysteries in machinery —
The night mares of abasement,
But deus ex machina scenery.
A pilgrim from a mare's nest
Rides in equanimity,
His engine's equine affinity
Has pistons for a prayerfest;
Oh sailor in the horse latitudes
Of mares ad mare, marist and marine,
The currents are your chargers of beatitude,
Becalmed in the combustion and serene.
NOTES For Students of English
Deus ex machina — Literally, "a god from a machine," an allusion to the practice in ancient Greek and Roman drama of lowering a god onto the stage by means of a crane (in a heavenly cloud or chariot) in order to solve difficulties. Hence, any person or thing that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly, as in fiction or drama, to provide a way out of an apparently inescapable dilemma.
Mare's Nest — A place, condition, or situation of great disorder or confusion; also, something that appears at first to be wonderful, but that turns out to be imaginary or a hoax.
Horse Latitudes — Either of two regions in the neighborhood of 30° N and 30° S latitude characterized by high pressure, calms, and light baffling winds; especially that part of the northern region which is over the Atlantic Ocean.
Ad mare — Latin for "to the sea."
Marist — Pertaining to the worship of, or work in honor of, the Virgin Mary; usually capitalized when designating a member of the Roman Catholic Society of Mary founded in France in 1816 and devoted to education.
Charger — A cavalry horse or an officer's horse for battle or parade.
"Currents are your chargers" — A pun on electrical current and ocean current; also a pun on electrical charger and "charger" meaning a cavalry horse.