Harry Crosby Queen Poems
- 1. Invocation To The Mad Queen
I would you were the hollow ship
fashioned to bear the cargo of my love
the unrelenting glove
hurled in defiance at our blackest world
... - 2. Telephone Directory
Mad Queen Aeronautical CorporationCyclone 3030Mad Queen Chemical CorporationGunpowder 3328Mad Queen Company for the Manufacture of Hand GrenadesGunpowder 8878Mad Queen Drug Store of Tonics and StimulantsDetonator 8808Mad Queen Dynamiting and Blasting CompanyRackarock 4196Mad Queen Express ElevatorsSpeedway 7898Mad Queen Fireworks CorporationHurricane 1144Mad Queen Garage for Vandals of the RoadSpeedway 3984Mad Queen Hospital for Electrifying the HeartCyclone 5679Mad Queen Jazz BandDetonator 8814Mad Queen Laboratory for the Manufacture of AphrodisiacsGunpowder 0090Mad Queen Lighting and Fuel CorporationGunpowder 4301Mad Queen Manufacturers of High ExplosivesThunderbolt 4414Mad Queen Racing AutomobilesSpeedway 6655Mad Queen Rum DistilleryExplosion 1152Mad Queen SkyscrapersHurricane 7444Mad Queen Society for the Vivisection of the PhilistinesThunderbolt 8778Mad Queen Society of IncendiariesRackarock 2254Mad Queen Steam Locomotive CompanySpeedway 1010Mad Queen Steam Roller ManufacturersDetonator 1234Mad Queen Windmills and WeathervanesHurricane 0164
... - 3. Sun-rhapsody
The Sun! the Sun!
a fish in the aquarium of sky
or golden net to snare the butterfly
of soul
... - 4. Assassin
I exchange eyes with the Mad Queen.
The mirror crashes against my face and bursts into a thousand suns. all over the city flags cracle and bang. Fog horns scream in the harbor. The wind hurricanes through the window. Tornadoes are unmuzzled as I begin to dance the dance of the Kurd Shepherds.
I stamp upon the floor. I whirl like dervishes. Colors revolve dressing and undressing. I lash them with fury stark white with iron black harsh red with blue marble green with bright orange and only gold remains naked. I roar with joy.
Black-footed ferrets disappear into holes.
... - 5. Tattoo
I am the criminal whose chest is tattooed with a poinard above which are graven the words 'mort aux bourgeois'. Let us each tattoo this on our hearts.
I am the soldier with a red mark on my nakedness-when in a frenzy of love the mark expands to spell Mad Queen. Let us each tattoo our Mad Queen on our heart.
I am the prophet from the land of the Sun whose back is tattooed in the design of a rising sun. Let us each tattoo a rising sun on our heart.
... - 6. Firebrand
What is your feeling about the revolutionary spirit ofyour age, as expressed, for instance, in such movements as communism, surrealism, anarchism?
The revolutionary spirit of our age (as expressed by communism, surrealism, anarchism, madness) is a hot firebrand thrust into the dark lantern of the world.
In Nine Decades
a Mad Queen shall be born.
... - 7. Heliograph
(Self-Portrait) Omens and Astrology. A desert flat and undisturbed, stupid and forlorn. Sunless. a caravan of failures. Pons Asinorum and the Feast of the Ass and revolt against standardized American childhood.
War and Violence.
Catapults and Torches and the first stray thrusts of Sun into the Soul. Bombardments and Bordels. Heraldry and High Walls. Too rigid to crumble but not too strong to fracture.
... - 8. Vision
I exchange eyes with the Mad Queen
the mirror crashes against my face
and bursts into a thousand suns
...
