Ward Kelley

Volcano words emit the powder of your bones,
the genuflection of your spirit, a nod,
a kiss, to all us poor humans . . .
there is an issuance, a behemoth
stoking of earthly skies,
and it is this dust that circles
the planet, an eclipse,
a beneficent cloud,
a bread of exhumed clarity.

You said your business
was circumference,
and where your words
have encircled this yearning
globe of ours, the genuflection
acknowledges something further . . .

you hinted our souls are meant
to mourn our mortal days,
then at last you were called back,
you testified, with the inference you
were there at least once before,

and you’ve now completed the current circle.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), New England poet, is one of the country’s
greatest poets. Spending nearly all of her life in Amherst, Massachusetts,
the last half in relative seclusion, Emily came to be known as eccentric.
Besides rare contacts with people outside her immediate family, she wore only
white dresses and sometimes referred to herself as a wayward nun. Regarding
her poems – only eleven of 1,775 poems were published during her lifetime –
she advocated the "propounded word." Her word for herself as a poet was
"gnome," and the poems themselves she called, "bulletins from Immortality."
Her last communication was written the day before her death, a short letter
sent to young relatives: "Little cousins, -- Called back. Emily."

Catherine the Great

The penance must be performed
over and over; its been fashioned
by my own flesh, these follicles
of purity that sometimes manage
to emanate from the sides
of my most passionate kisses.

There is no redemption in my lips,
only hints, merely caresses of thoughts,
glimmers of psalms; there is a prayer
between my breasts, an absolution . . .
for many men seek forgiveness here . . .
only I cannot forgive
that which I must take.

The best I can do for men
is to hint how to die well,
for is that not a central
question for our poor race?
And this I can surely perform.
I can allude how to die
the befitting death . . .
for it is evident
here at the lunging
between my breasts,
this intense spawning
that fashions the minds of men;
it is the penance
of those who fashion
themselves of flesh.

Born Sophia Augusta Frederika in Poland, Catherine the Great (1729-96), empress of Russia (1762-96), was betrothed to Grand Duke Peter at the age of fifteen. Her husband ascended the throne in 1761, but lasted less than a year due to his contempt for the Russian people. He was overthrown by the Imperial Guards who installed Catherine in his place. The deposed Peter was shortly murdered, probably with Catherine’s consent. Catherine continued the process of Westernization begun by Peter the Great and made Russia a European power. Where she corresponded extensively with Voltaire and other thinkers of the Enlightenment, she turned conservative later in her reign, and actually deteriorated the conditions of the serfs, causing an uprising in 1773. Known as a sensuous woman, she took many lovers; ten held major positions in her government, and of these three exerted great political influence. In her sexual practices, she was no different than many kings of this age, yet her appetite has entered history as one of her defining traits. Catherine died of apoplexy on November 6, 1796.

Napoleon Under Patches

There is no grain or proof
to this oaken plank of my soul,
my long dead soul, my soul
that scorns the depths
where the very dead
agree to reside,
my soul that yearns
to return to the crimes
of the often past.

Sometimes I wield this board
like a trumpet to herald
all the triumphs I have managed
against the calming nature
that resides in the depths
of us all.

No, no, I can always wrest
this away from my angelic
bents, and I can always
manage to arise again
to seek out the better
natures of why this soul
of mine must always
rip asunder the societal
patches that assuage
this passion of the human
for suffering on soil.

So, so, I can always
come forth . . .
and somewhere
under all these patches,
in some better redeemed age,
must lie a better purpose
to my demon soul.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), was one of the greatest military commanders of all time; he conquered most of Europe and did much to modernize the nations he ruled. Many components of the Napoleonic Code still thrive today. A driven man, Napoleon once said, "Power is my mistress." In 1803 he sold the Louisiana territory to the United States. Due to his disastrous retreat from Moscow in 1812, Napoleon’s enemies were able to force an abdication in 1814; a suicide attempt was unsuccessful, and he was exiled to the island of Elba. In 1815 he staged a dramatic comeback, only to be defeated at Waterloo and again exiled, this time to Saint Helena in the remote South Atlantic, where he died of stomach cancer on May 5, 1821.