I was commissioned in a dream by Imanja, also the Black Pope of Brazil, Tancred, to design a seven-tiered necklace of seven thousand skulls for the Statue of Liberty. Of course from a distance they'll look like pearls, but in November when the strongest winds blow, the skulls will rattle wildly, bone against metal, a crack and chatter of bone against metal, the true sound of history, this metal striking bone. I'm not going to get heavy-handed -- a job is a job and I've leased a football field for the summer, gathered a group of ladies who are art lovers, leased in advance a bull Sikorsky freight helicopter to drop on the necklace: funding comes from Ford Foundation, Rockefeller, the NEA. There is one Jewish skull from Atlanta, two from Mississippi, but this is basically an indigenous cast except skulls from tribes of blacks who got a free ride over from Africa, representative skulls from all the Indian tribes, an assortment of grizzly, wolf, coyote and buffalo skulls. But what beauty when the morning summer sun glances off these bony pates! And her great iron lips quivering in a smile, almost a smirk so that she'll drop the torch to fondle the jewels. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WHAT I'VE BELIEVED IN by JAMES GALVIN TO TWO UNKNOWN LADIES by AMY LOWELL A LETTER TO A POLICEMAN IN KANSAS CITY by KENNETH PATCHEN SPIRIT OF '76 by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS TO MY BOOKSELLER by BEN JONSON THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY |